Iridescent
by QueenOfCitrus
Summary: IchiHitsu: Meet Toushiro. Nasty reputation. Even nastier temper. And he hates the orange-haired guy whose face seems to be stuck to every ad and poster nowadays... Now enter Ichigo. Supermodel. Rich. Handsome. And he just moved across the street... FINISHED! Sequel already up!
1. Chapter 1

**_A/N: Now, I know what you're thinking: I shouldn't be starting ANOTHER story right now, but my laptop, with all the drafts, is currently getting fixed. So what else can I do rather than start a new 2-3shot and do my best to finish it soon? You could say that this is a part of the 'Colour' series, but it's out of the plan that I had in mind, so it goes under the name 'Iridescent'. The song is called 'If Everyone Cared' by Nickelback and according to me it has one of the best lyrics ever even if it might not be to everybody's liking._**

**_P.S. Has anyone noticed that there's an option in the right upper corner that can make the background of the story go black and the letters to become white?_**

**_Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach._**

* * *

><p>Iridescent<p>

Chapter 1

…_If everyone cared and nobody cried_

_If everyone loved and nobody lied_

_If everyone shared and swallowed their pride_

_Then we'd see the day when nobody died…_

As Hitsugaya entered the cigarettes-and-alcohol shop that afternoon, he couldn't help it but think that he would've never heard about Kurosaki Ichigo had it not been for three very disturbing facts:

**1**: The orange-haired prick's face was currently the most preferred visage for all sorts of advertisements, posters and billboards in the country (and not only) and thus in whichever direction he had the misfortune to turn, Toushiro was more or less forced to look at the man's obnoxiously smirking expression. It was like the world had suddenly run out of hot bodies to exploit and everybody were scrambling over each other to get their hands on the carrot-top in order to utilize his unreasonably popular smile into the next detergent commercial. The boy found it beyond creepy and quite sheepheaded to be honest. Not only did he not think that this Kurosaki person was even remotely as handsome as everybody were (sadly) trying to make him out to be, but also Hitsugaya felt awfully stalked whenever he swirled around the corner in some supermarket and nearly ran into a cardboard, real-size version of the supermodel, possibly with some perfume company's logo below, or a bottle of shampoo in his carton hands, or a box of fucking strawberry-flavored bubble gums (Ichigo? Strawberry? Anyone notice the creative hint?). See? _Creepy_.

There was no doubt in the boy's mind that this Kurosaki Ichigo guy was executing some incredibly cunning plan for world domination. There was no other explanation for it all: how was it possible for a person to infiltrate such radically different spheres of the media and economy and remain popular for this long? How did one manage to represent so many companies and still be sought out by _more _despite the tremendous number of contracts he already had? It was just unfathomable! And really, really, _really_ annoying.

Another example: the _idiot,_ who Toushiro was pretty sure didn't even _smoke_, had even become the face of the boy's favourite cigarettes brand. Hitsugaya's fucking _cigarettes_! _That_, the boy mused with a scowl as he leaned over the glass-case in search for a replacement for his usual fix, was an unforgivable sin. Now he had to find a different kind of smokes that he tolerated and, truthfully, that was like trying to drink Pepsi when you obviously like Coca-Cola. It _sucked._

But let's move on.

**2**: Hitsugaya had been living with his older cousin Momo for a little more than a year now, which, however one looked at it, meant that he was sharing his aslant, creaking excuse of a dwelling with a_ girl_. Girls were apparently, if inexplicably, very closely related to fashion magazines - and what was the flashiest attraction in fashion magazines?

Super-fucking-models. _That_.

Which, translated from Toushiro's elaborated language, was a way to say that he was stalked by Kurosaki's image even in his own home, never to escape the artificial presence that he despised so much. Ever. Ever. _Ever_.

Well, until this person miraculously dropped dead, which the man apparently wasn't planning to do any time soon…

…But still. _Still_, those were the bearable issues that bothered the boy, the ones that he could survive with– _really_ – because that was just the patient, reasonable and sunny guy that he was… He could manage having to listen about this Kurosaki person every day, see his face on his favourite channels and be forced to switch to the ones that broadcast exciting processes like fishing and golf, he could even put some effort into desisting from breaking things that carried this Ichigo's face on them. He was willing, so, _so_ willing to suffer all that for the sole purpose of some greater good.

Toushiro, however, could not and would _not_ accept the following fact:

**3:** The motherfucker lived just across the street.

When builders had arrived to lay down the foundations of a large house just a few months ago, the last thing that Hitsugaya had expected was that this would end up to be the palace-like home of his worst nightmare. Karakura, Toushiro had always said, was like Wonderland. Everything could happen, mostly unpleasant stuff and mostly to Toushiro. Which would, in some alternative universe, probably denote the boy as a very, very bitter, unpleasant and highly unfriendly Alice, but that was irrelevant for now…

Grimacing childishly, Hitsugaya forced the name of the replacement brand of cigarettes out of his mouth and quickly paid to the shop assistant, eyes drilling suspiciously in the pack's back even as he walked out of the place and let his skateboard fall flat on the empty sidewalk beside his feet. Flipping his purchase between his fingers for a bit, he briefly considered going back and changing his request to what he usually liked rather than this shitty smokes that he just _knew_ would make his stomach churn. Reconsidering such choice, he noticed, would be a first. The first time to ignore this quite astounding, destructive tendency of his that consisted in proving pointless things to himself via the means of self-suffering. It could be a step forward, a move away from his absolutely impossible attitude towards everything and everybody, a _progress_ regarding his opinion on changes, and celebrities, and friendship, and relationships, and all the other things that most people had such firmly set ideas about… Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't it?

Before the temptation had got the best of him, Hitsugaya clenched his jaw and swiftly tore the thin plastic cover of the commodity. _Forget it_. With a rarely-expressed determination, Toushiro plucked one of the tobacco sticks and tucked it between his lips, grumbling something incoherent under his breath as he fished out a lighter from his pocket, pressed the little button and cupped his palms around the flame to protect it from the wind until it served its purpose. A moment later he straightened his back and took a deep drag, nearly choking when the unpleasant taste of cheap cigarettes stuck to his tongue and throat.

"Shit…" the boy mumbled, pulling the thing away from his mouth and giving it a disbelieving look. "Who the fuck would buy this?"

_Me, that's who_. Toushiro shook his head and lifted his right foot to nudge against the board in his feet, absently rolling it back and forth along the uneven concrete. A woman with a kid walked past him, her gaze briefly and aimlessly landing on his face - just long enough for her to recognize him and do a double take. The surprise and suspicion in her widened eyes was so predictable, so obvious and plain, that the nineteen-year-old lad couldn't help it but stare right back at her, the sour taunting chuckle that tore from his lips enough to have the mother hurrying away as though she had just stumbled across a leper. _Splendid._ Karakura was just such a small, cute town, wasn't it? Homey and shit. People knew everything about everybody, because above all, gossip, and stories, and fiction – those were the main entertainment around here and to fit in, to be accepted, you needed to sacrifice a few things. You had to be aware of a few specific details that if not regarded with care, could ruin anyone's life. The first and probably the only real principle that mattered, was that whoever dared to break the rules that this incredibly morale-driven town had put up, was to be punished. It was an unspoken decision between people from all ages, a tacit understanding of a sort, and few dared interfere, especially if they wanted to keep their good name. You might not know about the snowy-haired son of the mayor, but you must most definitely hear the story from one source or the other, you have to know what he did, you need to make him feel like the trash he is if you ever stumble upon him. That's how it works. That's how it fuckin' works... And you don't get to feel bad, okay? You just don't. It's a one-sided story, no grey areas, no hesitation, so _don't bother_ trying to find out more.

He's an embarrassment, that boy. An _embarrassment_. And he didn't even say that he regretted it, not once.

_That's me. _Toushiro thought as he watched the lady's back disappear behind the nearest corner with a funny, penguin-like sort of speed-walk. _The one and only. Are you going to tell your kid about me when he grows up?_

Swallowing back the unpleasant flavor in his mouth, Hitsugaya brought the cigarette back to his lips and inhaled another dose from the bitter poison, his eyes turning to look at his own reflection in the shop's window. For a guy who had been thrown out by his own parents awhile ago, he still looked quite okay. He didn't wear that unkempt, scanty appearance that the local hobos displayed so readily, he just seemed a bit… er…

_Miserable_?

Shaking the thought away as soon as it had entered his head, Toushiro forced another unpleasant drag from the cigarette into his lungs and tilted his head to the side at his reflection. He was still thin underneath his attire, still unusually short, _small_ for a nine-teen-year old, but fit and well-built like an athlete. He knew men still turned around when he walked by, closet cases or open cases, they all stopped dead in their tracks to stare shamelessly at his tight little ass, his incredibly long legs and the messy, exotically coloured hair that cut him out of the crowd and left them with the burning afterflavor of hot arousal, solely caused by the knowledge of what he had done. Sure, Hitsugaya was as attractive as he could be repulsive, his biting, sarcastic manner of talking, the unpleasant habit of brushing people off without getting to know them, it was all quite difficult to swallow, especially if one wasn't prepared. He could act a little nicer if he felt like it, but why bother? It was obvious that whoever approached him already had a fore-made idea of who he was, so why would he try to dispel or alter it? Toushiro was who he was and if Karakura didn't like it, they could suck it up. A nice percent of the guys already wanted to anyways.

Letting his eyes rest more specifically on the face in the half-transparent mirror, the boy noticed that he was a little paler that he used to be, too, the sharp collarbones and the trail of his jawline protruding more saliently through the almost see-through white skin of his face. Without the interference of the school rules which he had always hated with passion, he was free to wear black nail-polish the way he had always wanted to, he could spend his whole day with a baseball hat on his head if he so decided, and no one, _fuckin finally_, had the right to forbid him from the torn jeans and hoodies that he favored so much, _or_ the night tours that he took with Renji and Rukia on a regular basis to spray-paint the walls of abandoned or not-so-abandoned buildings. Sure, those escapades had caused him to get arrested twice so far, but who cared about that anyway? Not his lovely parents, that was certain.

Chucking the burnt cigarette to the side with an almost relieved sigh, Toushiro stuffed his hands in his pockets and jumped on his skateboard, propelling himself lazily with his left foot as he maneuvered his way down the street and towards his house. Hinamori and he lived almost at the very end of the town in a badly-built, stubby construction that had once belonged to Hitsugaya's grandmother. The boy's parents hadn't showed any objections towards him occupying the place, so the white-haired teen wasn't planning to move out any time soon. He had a part-time job in a shop during the weekdays, the occasional request to paint a wall in some street-dancing club and pretty much more free time than he could possibly ask for. The future didn't look very bright with him having got kicked out of school and all, but it wasn't something that he cared to think about very often. What was the point anyway?

By the time he got home, Hitsugaya had managed to smoke two more cigarettes, grimacing and lamenting under his breath about their foul taste the whole time. He finished the tobacco sticks anyway and after purposefully ignoring the large mansion just across the street from his house, he unlocked the door and got in, not really wanting to bother his cousin by ringing or knocking when he could very well get in himself.

Placing his skateboard beside the door and shrugging his thick hoodie off to throw it on the nearest chair, Toushiro absently made his way further inside the house, all the while formulating his daily string of complaints in his head. He knew Hinamori wouldn't agree with half the things he had to say, but that wasn't what really mattered – he just needed to vent a little before bedtime and that was about it.

Pulling the baseball hat off, Hitsugaya ran long pale fingers through his hair, absently tousling the strands, messing them together as he soundlessly headed for the kitchen only to stop dead in his track just on the threshold when he saw that his cousin was not alone.

"This day keeps getting better and better." Toushiro breathed, brows forming two identically surprised arches as the two other people in the room turned to face him.

"Hey, Shiro-chan!" Hinamori greeted from where she was putting a plate of freshly baked cookies in the center of the table, a bit closer to her guest than to her own body in an unspoken hint for him to eat up. Hitsugaya had to literally bite his tongue to keep from throwing a sarcastic remark at Momo's pathetic attempts to be hospitable – it was fuckin' amazing that this guy hadn't found himself a very important excuse to get out of this place yet. The man looked like he had been cut out of some glossy, colourful page in an expensive magazine and stuck on the cover of a school paper. Everything around the kitchen seemed to be rejecting him the way a human organism would fight a foreign body off – the chipped walls, the uneven wooden floor, the furniture - they were all clashing viciously with the piece of resplendence behind the table and the sight did not amuse Toushiro in the slightest…

Kurosaki Ichigo was one of those people that carried a very well-emphasized air of masculinity around themselves without appearing ridiculous in the slightest. He was tall and lean, with a beautifully harmonized muscle structure, even complexion and one of those boyish smiles that could make the knees of pretty much anyone (except the incredibly grumpy Toushiro) go weak. Everything about his clothes and overall style aimed for the proverbial 'casual' look that each man was dreaming to achieve nowadays, and yet not a single hair was out of place, not one tinge of a colour was mismatched with the rest of his attire or accessories, and the fact gave him the look of something that had just been snatched from a barely opened package.

"Don't call me that." Toushiro deadpanned more out of habit than anything else, jade orbs still focused on their guest as he placed his forearm against the door-frame and leaned his weight on it. Before him Ichigo's expression changed just a bit, brown eyes darkening further as he let them travel down the boy's body, from the slender white neck, down the slightly shabby-looking t-shirt to the pair of long legs, his gaze seemingly pausing to linger boldly on every piece of torn material to admire the hints of clean pale flesh underneath the denim. Hitsugaya felt his skin tingle under the scrutiny and he barely resisted the urge to snap at the model before Momo was speaking again, her cheery voice withering slightly around the edges with a sort of worry that the white-haired boy knew was his fault.

"Well, since Mr. Kurosaki's been living across from us for a whole week now, I thought maybe it was a good idea to invite him over, um… Don't you agree?"

"Oh, yeah. Wonderful." Toushiro said, his voice purposefully devoid of any emotion as he proceeded to search his pockets for the pack of cigarettes that, as he promptly realized, had been left in the hoodie. "I absolutely don't mind you inviting a complete stranger in our house while I'm out."

"Actually, my name is Ichigo." The model stated, his mouth twisted with a hint of amusement as he continued staring at the boy in a way that made Hitsugaya realize that the carrot-top hadn't really looked away ever since the shorter male's appearance. "I work-"

"I know who you are; unfortunately it just so happens to be impossible not to be aware." Toushiro noticed unhappily, the series of ambushes from real-size cardboard ads immediately popping in his head. "I'm just returning from a walk full of random versions of 'you' and – would you look at that? – I get the original source of my misery in my own house. Oh, what a fortunate day that is, indeed! Do you think you can find the door yourself or is your brain and sight too damaged from all the photo shoots to successfully accomplish such an elaborate task?"

"Toushiro!" Momo squeaked indignantly and the boy rolled his eyes, this time completely slumping against the door-frame on one shoulder as he eyed his guest pointedly. Much to his displeasure, he found no anger or annoyance in the taller one's expression – just a bit of surprise and a much more powerful proportion of humour and interest that seemed to be pouring from the man's every pore, seeping out and trying their best to permeate through Toushiro's icy demeanor the way a safety-match might try to warm up a glacier.

"I'm sorry. I was rude. " Hitsugaya enunciated nastily. "Do you think that you could _please _find the door yourself or would you need some assistance?"

"Ignore him." Hinamori cut in immediately, not really giving Ichigo the chance to say something. "He just likes showing off just how much of an asshole he can really be."

"Yeah, that might as well be the purpose of my existence." Came the dry retort and the carrot-top chuckled, still refusing to tear his gaze away from the shorter male.

"Are you two related?" the model asked and the other occupants of the room nodded, murmuring simultaneous complaints under their breaths over a short glaring match. "And you live together?"

"Yes, imagine that!" Hinamori exclaimed, the first real signs of anger already showing up on the surface as she bounced up and down her toes restlessly, arms wrapped around her middle as she glowered daggers at her cousin. "I made the mistake to take pity on him when his parents-"

"THAT I think is quite enough." Toushiro snapped, cutting her off sharply before turning to the carrot-top. "Mr. Kurosaki, would you be so kind to leave?"

Letting his smile grow just a bit, Ichigo rose to his feet, quickly calming down Hinamori's tide of objections with just a few words before her tirade had managed to get too out of control. He kissed the girl's hand goodbye in a manner that immediately had Hinamori blushing all over like a third-grader and made his way past Toushiro. The two cousins stood still and silent until the front door clicked closed and the moment it did, Momo was at the boy's throat once again.

"Why did you have to be so mean?"

"I told you." Hitsugaya growled, his aggression not really directed at the girl as he made his way inside the kitchen and took a cookie from the top of the pile of still warm sweets. "He's snobbish and fake all over. I don't like him."

"You used to be the same!" Hinamori tried to rebuff but Toushiro lifted his index finger and calmly wagged it in denial, his teeth already nibbling on the second half of the cookie.

"I was rich, but I was never a snob." He argued easily and Momo's scowl deepened, eyes darkening like a thundercloud as she put her hands on her hips with the determination of a mother that was planning to give her child a good scolding. Before her Hitsugaya just let his brows jolt upwards impartially, obviously deeply unimpressed by the threat this was supposed to impose on him, and turned around to pluck another home-made baked goodness from the plate. He honestly hated fighting with Hinamori – she had never been very resourceful or convincing when expressing her point and so Toushiro rarely had trouble defending his own views. That didn't mean, however, that he enjoyed any of those bickers – they were exhausting to say the least, and had the awful penchant to lead to nothing in particular which more or less resulted in the boy suffering from a severe headache.

Plus, it wasn't like he was going to suddenly have a change of heart and start fancying this Kurosaki person, was it?

"You thought you could do anything and get away with it." She tried again and Toushiro let out a small, torn sound that could've been laughter had it held any hint of genuine happiness in itself.

"That is also not true: I did what I did because I thought I was right at that time."

"Really? Well, maybe you're not right about Ichigo, too?"

"I don't think so. He's as dislikable as they get."

"Why?" Hinamori enquired a surprising sort of sharpness showing in her voice as she stared at the back of her cousin's neck with burning, gimlet eyes. "He's exactly your type, is he not? Tall, handsome, rich… did I mention _older_?"

The words spilled from her lips and hung in the empty space between them for a good few moments, their unclear meaning, the unspoken accusation making them sound like a vociferous screech in a barren field rather than the soft almost susurration that they really represented. The moment he processed what his cousin had just said, Toushiro froze, his shoulders going stiff and hard as marble as he slowly put the cookie he had been preparing to eat back on the pile. His hands that were now resting on the table's surface, curled into tight fists and he lowered his head, a jolt of scalding pain shooting through his chest, paralyzing his muscles the way a powerful poison might. His breathing broke a little and he closed his eyes, the familiar feeling of hurt covering his skin with a thin layer of invisible frost.

"Wow, Momo…" he mumbled, surprising himself with how weak his voice suddenly sounded, how hard it had suddenly become to speak up. "I thought _you_ of all people understood."

"Shiro-chan…" he felt the regret in her tone, the search for forgiveness, but he jerked his shoulder away the moment he felt her fingers brush against it. Taking a few more deep breaths, he let his expression soften before finally gathering the strength to storm out of the kitchen.

* * *

><p>Grousing under his breath about too much rain and crappy weather, Toushiro dragged his feet to the middle of the hallway and stuck a bucket under the leak that he had been promising himself to find a solution for for what seemed like forever. A drop of water managed to land on the burning end of his cigarette and the tobacco stick sizzled angrily, the flame dying away completely when another water-bomb from the holey roof managed to finish what the first had started. Straightening his back, Hitsugaya snatched the now destroyed fag from his lips and gave it a scornful look, mentally willing it to dare not catch on fire right this very moment.<p>

Which it did. The impudent little thing. It ventured to disobey, thinking probably that it could get away with such audacity.

Hitsugaya's dignity was wounded.

"Fuck." The curse squeezed between his lips along with a weary sigh and Toushiro was just about to turn around and walk to the waste bin to throw the now useless cigarette away, when a soft knock on the door made him stop dead in his tracks. Taking a quick look around as though he expected to see someone already inside the house, Hitsugaya looked back at where the sound had come from and frowned with bewilderment. Judging by the amount of water that was seeping through the roof and filling the bucket at a tremendous speed, he was pretty sure the condition in the outside world was pretty much unbearable. Having people come to visit right now (or at all for that matter) sounded ridiculous.

Without tearing his eyes away from the entrance, the boy tilted his head back a little and shouted over his shoulder:

"Momo, are you expecting someone?"

He heard something along the lines of 'Don't be silly.' but the reply was half-drowned by another knock on the door and Hitsugaya groaned with annoyance, wading barefooted to answer it before he had changed his mind.

"What?" the question sprang from Toushiro's mouth prior to him even looking up to see who it was that was having the stupidity to disturb him at _this_ hour and in _this_ weather. A low chuckle was the first thing that greeted him and the boy's eyes instantly darkened, narrowing cholericly upon having the misfortune to land on his neighbor's face as though it was a tax-inspector smirking down at him rather than the most popular visage in the country. "What do you want?"

Armed with an umbrella and clad in a thin tee and jeans, Ichigo bounced a little on his feet like a restless child might, his left hand rubbing sporadically up and down his right arm in some pathetic attempt to warm the skin up. Toushiro found it quite amusing really – being so uncomfortable with low temperatures and all – seeing as the man had only been forced to cross the street to get to Hitsugaya's house and was suffering greater misfortunes that the teen would after spending hours outside in the cold.

"Nice to see you, too." The carrot-top noticed, raising an ironic brow at Toushiro's glum expression before quaking all over with the next formidable shiver (the white-haired teen was sadistically delighted by the sight). "Can I come in?"

"No." Hitsugaya stated resolutely, his expression not altering in the slightest as he crossed his arms over his chest with the cigarette still sticking limply between his fingers and tipped his head back a little as though to have a better look at the man before him. "Only Momo is foolish enough to let stalkers in the house."

This time both of Ichigo's brows shot upwards, a low chocking sound escaping his lips as he blinked owlishly at the shorter.

"You think I'm a-… _what_?"

"Never mind." Toushiro said staidly, not bothering to explain any further how he had mentally decried the model quite a long time ago. "Can you just say what you wanted so I can say no and you can leave?"

"Ah. Right. Well, I need a favor." The carrot-top admitted, ignoring the rest of the boy's comment with ease that few dared to show in such situation. Letting a little lop-sided smirk twist his lips, Ichigo thrust his thumb over his shoulder, unambiguously pointing in his house's direction as he continued. "I'm throwing a big party tonight in, ugh, honour of my moving here."

"I'm not going to raise any noise complaints if that's what you're thinking." Toushiro derided impartially, pulling a face when the other one shook his head, obviously having something completely different in mind. Great. This wasn't over yet.

"_That_ I would've had no problem dealing with, actually…" Ichigo's gaze lifted to some spot above Hitsugaya's head and he proceeded to chew on the inside of his bottom lip, obviously mulling over how to put into words the rest of his request. _Oh, God… _With the toes of his bare feet curling restlessly against the floor, Toushiro discovered that his thin patience could stretch to a much further extent than he had originally expected, his annoyance towards his neighbor growing steadily as he waited for something more consistent to be declared. "I had been promising to introduce my boyfriend to quite a few people tonight. Some of them have been nagging me about it for some time cuz this is probably the closest thing to a real relationship I've had in months… Problem is my wonderful significant other…. He sort of broke up with me about an hour ago."

_Huh._ Hitsugaya let his chin lower a little and snorted loudly, boldly running a scrutinizing gaze all over the taller male almost as though he was seeing the model for the very first time. He had never really considered the possibility that this Kurosaki person could be gay, or bi, or whatever it was that had caused him to enter a liaison with another man, but for _some_ reason he wasn't particularly surprised. Thinking back to the way the carrot-top had been literally eating the boy's legs up with his eyes the other day, it would've been quite stupid to exclude the possibility that the celebrity could have a more… unusual sexual orientation.

"Really, now? That's funny. You don't look too upset. " The boy noticed flatly, completely unimpressed by the sheepish (and annoyingly charming) grin the other one was giving him. He could definitely see where all this paparazzi adoration was coming from - this guy was born for the camera, born to be put in the spotlight where everybody could swoon over his looks and idealize his persona – he had the sort of charismatic magnetism of a star, combined with a bit of that 'ordinary- boy' sort of trait that famous people tended to lose nowadays, and the result was mind-blowing. _So_ mind-blowing actually, that Toushiro felt it was his duty to express even more diligently the healthy amount of disdain that Kurosaki obviously wasn't receiving often enough. "Do you need me to fetch you a handkerchief or bucket or what do you need to stop all these heartbroken tears from coming?"

Ichigo shook his head features still twisted with amusement despite the now quite worrisome series of shivers that were shaking his tall frame.

"In my business it's pretty tough to get attached – people keep staring at your wallet, if you know what I mean."

"I happen not to know." Hitsugaya admitted in a drawl, trying so very hard not to roll his eyes. "But anyway, what do_ I_ have to do with your personal life failures, hm?"

"Ugh…" the uneasy expression was back on the man's face again and once again Toushiro frowned, wondering for a moment if he should've guessed some sort of implication beforehand. "Since so far you and your-"

"Cousin."

"Right. Since you and your cousin are the only ones I know around here, I was wondering if you would… agree to be my date for the night?"

Hitsugaya's eyes popped wide so suddenly he was actually surprised they didn't roll out of their sockets and tumbled down the steps. Between the desire to ask what the fuck the model meant and denote the jest as quite a good one, he somehow managed to choke on his own saliva, a disturbing mix of coughing and a laughter spilling from his lips as he stared incredulously at the man before him. He half expected Ichigo to join in with a bit of chuckling on his own part, maybe another idiotic remark that would completely stigmatize him as an imbecile… but nothing of the sort happened. Instead, the carrot-top just shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other, patiently awaiting the moment when Toushiro would be able to breathe normally again.

"Oh my, you're serious." The white-haired teen forced out, the pathetic semblances of a smile dripping off his face as he finally managed to collect himself and stare at the man before him with sincere surprise. "You're-… not joking?"

"Sure." Ichigo agreed, shrugging easily as he transferred his umbrella from one hand to the other. "I'll pay you back some time."

"Like I would ever need something from _you._" Hitsugaya pointed out dryly and the other one's lips twisted funnily, his brown eyes shifting from the boy's face as he nodded towards something over the younger one's shoulder. _Damn…_ Letting his expression darken with the premonition of what this probably about, Toushiro turned around just in time to see the bucket in the center of the hallway lose a good amount of its content onto the floor out of overfilling. Great. More swells in the wooden floor. Hinamori wouldn't be happy.

Turning around to face the taller male's complacent expression with his own sullen one, Hitsugaya wrinkled his nose fretfully.

"You'll get my roof fixed?"

"It'll be as good as new by tomorrow night." Ichigo stated resolutely, a bit of victory already shining in the edges of his smile as he straightened his back. "And don't worry, I'll the perfect gentleman, no funny business, no nothing."

Before him, Hitsugaya sighed, a layer of the usual biting façade peeling off his face as he reached to rub the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger.

"You don't get it." Toushiro breathed, a bit from his exasperation returning as he shook his head and pressed his lips in a bitter line for a moment. "Out of all the people in Karakura, I'm the _worst_ choice for you to be seen with."

"Why?" the carrot-top asked, his features suddenly softening as he tried to catch the younger one's gaze again. "You might be awfully sarcastic and overly blunt at times, but I admit: you're interesting. And smart. And-… well, yeah, pretty damn hot, too. Who wouldn't want you to be their date?"

Looking up again, Toushiro allowed a smile that was much more rueful than it was mocking to graze his lips as he let his body slump a little against the doorframe.

"I have a reputation." He admitted lowly, almost teasingly and Ichigo chuckled dismissively.

"All the better."

* * *

><p>Toushiro had never been much of a party person – his means of having fun much more often than not managed to contradict everybody else's preferences and so instead of trying to get his point across, he had always just taken the easy way out and stayed at home whenever he got invited to something like that. Similarly, he was feeling incredibly out of place right now, his fingers already itching for a cigarette by the time he finally found himself on his own after seemingly hours of being introduced to people that he would probably never meet again. He had summoned his best attitude early on in order to appear at least partially amiable –which, <em>yes<em>, just so happened to mean less talking, more fake smiling – and had even allowed Ichigo to drape his arm around his waist despite the fact that such public displays had never been his forte (even if they weren't actually real). On more than one occasion so far he had asked himself as to _why_ he had agreed to this ridiculous parade in the first place, and his wonderings, consisted as they were, had revolved mainly around the following questions: was the nagging need for a mended roof the major reason to expose himself to such depreciating activities or had he really just been looking for an excuse for a change, at least for one night? Was he seeking an opportunity to feel the lost spark of luxury, glamour and posh courtesy that always surrounded such pointless events? Was he, really?

Not so long ago, he had lived in similar house, with similar lustrous sort of furniture, similar fancy adornments, curtains, tablecloths, similarly extravagant paintings along the walls, and yes, just the same vast, dazzling and immense-looking hall that was always so convenient for gathering a limitless number of people. Not so long ago this had been his world, his path in life: money, influence, a _sea_ of hypocritical faces with no names that would make your eyes ache with the unwanted, painfully artificial iridescence, _ears_ that sought what wasn't theirs to know, _mouths_ that would tattle senselessly against your neck as you pretended to care about whatever they were forcing in your already overfilled brain… Toushiro had never been the perfect fit for this atmosphere and his parents had always known it. He had an obnoxious, nocuous manner of speaking, a bunch of nasty habits that included the pointless, wayward tendency to curse whenever he felt like it, and in lieu of learning his place the way most people would under his father's heavy hand, he had just got worse with the time. Obstinate. Impudent. _Brusque_. He could've learned to cope and lived like the reputable son of a politician, but he had willingly and purposefully been annihilating all such loopholes from the moment he had gathered enough gray matter to form his own opinion. Sure, there had been quite a few perks that he had had the right to utilize during the old days, but Hitsugaya wasn't entirely certain if he missed those enough to return to that style of… well, _existing_, really. He sure wouldn't complain if he got _some_ things back, a bit of the old, unconditional respect, maybe a working faucet or two, a hole-less roof, a non-sputtering TV and maybe-…

He looked down at the only decent outfit that he still owned.

…Maybe some clothes, too.

Pushing away the intrusive thoughts, Hitsugaya made his way to the end of the room, thanking every deity out there that Ichigo didn't know many people from Karakura and thus there would not be any nasty talking behind his back. He didn't usually mind gossip – in fact, he complimented himself to be quite above these things – but he had the feeling that if he stumbled upon anyone that he knew, one such incident would have the power to destroy his mood for the evening completely and irreversibly. Sure, this wasn't the most entertaining place he could think of, but it was alright. Free food. Free drinks. People were actually _talking_ to him…

…He dared let the edges of his lips curl upwards just a bit.

And yeah, as promised, Kurosaki was being quite the gentleman.

"Soo, _you_ are Ichigo's new conquest, huh?" an unfamiliar voice asked and Toushiro lifted his gaze from where he had been scanning the bottles of alcohol on the large table in the corner to smile dryly at the man beside him.

"Conquest?" he repeated, forgetting for a moment that he was supposed to be polite. "Doesn't that sound flattering?"

The man let out a genuine chuckle at that comment, the laid-back smile and the pair of surprisingly charming drowsy eyes making Toushiro's brows jolt upwards with a hint of interest. He wasn't sure how old this man was (his whole looks - from the long auburn wavy hair to the unshaved beard and the casual attire – gave him a sort of ageless air that very few possessed) but instead of the imposing erudite mask that the rest of the guests refused to take off, he had a bit of that easy-going radiance that usually belonged to teenagers.

And Hitsugaya found himself rather relieved to meet someone like that.

"Didn't mean to offend you." the older male stated with a blithe little smile that somehow managed to pull one of Toushiro's rare ones to the surface as well. "I don't think we've met before. Nice to meet you kid."

"I'm not a kid." Hitsugaya noticed (not unkindly) as he took the other one's hand and shook it, jade eyes warming up a bit underneath the icy crust as he watched the other man's grin broaden in an avuncular fashion.

"Kyouraku Shunsui, And you must be-"

"Toushiro." The boy replied, surprising even himself by how reluctant he suddenly felt towards the perspective of offering his last name. Watching the taller one's brow arch questionably, the boy bit his lower lip before adding. "Hitsugaya Toushiro."

"Hitsugaya?" Kyouraku repeated, obviously surprised as he turned to the table and plucked a bottle out of the line of half-empty ones to pour himself a drink. "Any possible relation to the mayor?"

Toushiro shook his head, a chunk of bitter laughter spilling from his lips as he let the lie leave his mouth with absolutely no difficulty.

"No. Just a coincidence."

"Funny." The man stated noncommittally as his hand absently swished the alcohol around in its transparent confines before lifting the half-filled glass to his lips and letting him take an experimental sip. "Do you do anything for a living or do you do Ichigo for a living?"

"I'm not generally fond of doing people for a living but, _oh,_ you got me." Toushiro deadpanned sarcastically, not really disturbed by the implication. "Ichigo's my big exception. He's pretty profitable, like fucking a sexy piggy bank and I just couldn't help myself – I_ had_ to have him." Clicking his tongue thoughtfully, the boy reached for a wine from the end of the row and after giving the label a thorough scan, he poured himself a good amount of the crimson liquid, all the while humming a nameless tune under his breath. Beside him the taller male let out a curt laugh but didn't say anything, obviously waiting for the smaller male to finish – a fact that had Hitsugaya sighing wearily just a moment later before adding. "I do street art, I suppose."

"Street art?" Shunsui repeated, a hint of fascination flashing in his voice. "Graffiti?"

"Yup." Hitsugaya agreed with a little popping emphasize on the last letter, gaze still focused on his beverage as he lifted it to his eye-level and examined it with a blank stare. "Graffiti. You know… the illegal stuff that can get you arrested."

There was a small pause during which Toushiro calmly sipped his wine, half expecting the other man to say something debasing towards such means of self-expression, or even to walk away without a word (because it didn't take a genius to realize that talking about a sort of hooliganism with high-class people was _not_ a smart thing to do) but instead, a low shuffling sound came from Kyouraku's direction and a moment later a small notepad and pen were shoved under the boy's nose.

"Do you mind showing me?" the man asked and Hitsugaya nearly sputtered the whine all over the table.

"W-what?"

"Draw something. Anything, actually, I've always been interested in this sort of technique." The man stated seriously and Toushiro's jaw went slack.

Ten minutes later he was handing a simple sketch back to the older guy, who looked down at the image and beamed, seemingly incredibly pleased with something.

"Impressive." He stated professionally. "I'd be curious to see what you can do with colours. Hitsugaya Toushiro, was it?"

"Yeaaah…" the boy drawled, not really trying to hide the suspicion that poured into his voice.

"Perfect!" the man stated, smiling broadly. "We'll speak again."

And just like that, Kyouraku was gone, leaving a thoroughly puzzled Toushiro to himself.

* * *

><p>Hitsugaya was pretty sure that after being introduced to every important person that he <em>had <em>to be introduced to, he'd have to spend the rest of the night by himself. Seeing as Shunsui had successfully managed to vanish into thin air, the boy decided that the wisest thing to do was steal a bottle from this wine that he found particularly good, and hide somewhere to selfishly drink it _all_ by himself. It was a simple plan really, easy to accomplish, and he would've definitely got through with it, had it not been for a certain carrot-top that caught his arm just as Toushiro was crossing the hall to find himself a quiet dark hole to crawl in.

"Planning on getting wasted?" Ichigo questioned warmly, looking down at the wine that Hitsugaya was holding fondly in his right hand, absolutely no signs of any glasses anywhere in their immediate vicinity. Toushiro looked down at the set of tan fingers that the other one had wrapped just above his elbow and raised a brow, sincerely confused for a second time that evening.

"So?" the boy asked, impatience seeping from his tone. "Are you specifically attached to this particular bottle, because I can get another one. Even though I really don't want to."

"Don't be silly." The carrot-top chuckled, tugging the wine out of Hitsugaya's hold and sticking it in the nearest potted plant without much care. "You're not getting drunk like some lonely spinster; I'm your date, I managed to get rid of everybody else and now I'm going to entertain you."

"Really?" Toushiro asked flatly and very, very incredulously, his eyes trailing with longing towards the potted plant. "Are you sure? I can always-"

"Yes._ Really_." Ichigo replied firmly, grinning lop-sidedly at the reluctance that didn't fail to emerge on the smaller male's face. "And _yes_. I'm sure. Now come on."

"Come on where?" Hitsugaya inquired, narrowing his eyes suspiciously as the taller male proceeded to drag him towards the front door, grabbing his and Toushiro's coat on the way. "_Outside_?"

"Of course. Did you have anything else in mind?"

"But- But your shitty excuse of a party!" the boy objected indignantly, making a futile attempt to halt the towing by digging his heels into the ground and pointing over his shoulder with confusion. "It's your fucking party! Are you going to ditch your own fucking party?"

Ichigo barely glanced back to give the smaller male an amused grin.

"Well, it _is_ a pretty boring one, isn't it?" he stated easily before opening the front door and ushering his date on the dark porch.

* * *

><p>"So let me get this straight," Hitsugaya drawled, his expression still one of genuine confusion as he reached for one of the ice-creams that Ichigo had bought for both of them from a round-the-clock shop just a few meters from the bench Toushiro was currently occupying. "You throw parties for certain occasions, because 'you just have to' and then right after greeting everyone, you ditch?"<p>

"Yup." The carrot-top agreed before taking a seat beside the smaller male, fingers already working on unwrapping the strawberry (oh, God, the _irony_!) ice-cream with incredible expertise. "But, c'mon, you can't blame me. _You_ were the one who tried to sneak out with a whole bottle of wine."

"That's irrelevant." Toushiro immediately objected, legs dangling restlessly off the edge of the bench as he finally got rid of his dessert's cover and took a trial lick. "You can't prove that I was planning to consume the content of that bottle, and neither do you have any evidence that there was actual alcohol in said bottle, as well."

"Oh, _please_, what was it, then?"

"Oh, _puh-lease_!" Toushiro mimicked with an overly high-pitched voice before adding much more flatly, a small smile twisting his lips. "Grape juice."

"Right. Fermented one?"

"I can't say, I didn't have the chance to check because _someone_ decided to feed it to the fichus."

"Gee. Does anyone buy the things you say?"

"Another irrelevant statement. I suggest you just admit defeat before it's too late."

Ichigo gave the smaller male a pointed look, a low snort breaking through his lips as he raised a questioning brow.

"Defeat?" he repeated incredulously tilting his head a little to the side to take a closer look at Hitsugaya's face. "Really?"

"Yes. That's when you lose." Toushiro explained airily, mouth half latched on the ice-cream as he glanced at the taller male with the corner of his eye. "Which would be when you don't win."

Ichigo chuckled, shaking his head a little as he leaned back against the bench, impossibly long legs stretching forward as he slumped in the uncomfortable seat.

"I know what it means." He teased softly and when Hitsugaya opened his mouth, preparing to make another remark, the carrot-top added hurriedly. "If I' admit defeat', will that make you happy?"

Toushiro's mouth instantly cracked into a huge, obviously fake smile and he nodded his head, claiming that yes, that would promptly turn him into the happiest person in the world.

"Well, alright then, I acknowledge your superiority." The orange-haired man shrugged carelessly and beside him the ends of the boy's lips instantly pulled downwards, this time creating an expression of complete tedium as he proceeded to nibble at the edge of his cone morosely.

"Ugh. You're so easy." Toushiro groused with an exaggerated roll of his eyes and Ichigo blinked, momentarily taken aback.

"Well, good thing then that _you _happen to be so difficult." The carrot-top pointed out flippantly, not really putting any malice in his tone as he kept eating his ice-cream, his shoulder tensing just a bit when the other one's jade eyes snapped in his direction.

"Oh, I'm _sorry,_" Toushiro muttered in his trademark deadpan sarcasm. "Would you like me to get on my knees right now and blow you as a means of apology?"

"That would be great, yeah."

Without so much of a second thought, Hitsugaya reached behind the taller male and heartlessly smacked him upside the head like adults often did to show their kids that they had said something inappropriate. It wasn't much of a hit, neither was it meant to inflict any actual pain, but it was unpleasant nonetheless (especially since it had nearly made the carrot-top sniff some of the icy dessert through his nose) and Ichigo "omphed" softly, hand shooting up to rub the sore spot at the back of his neck. Figuring that he had gone over the top with this last comment, the taller male let out a low sigh and opened his mouth say that he was sorry, when the strangest sound grazed his ears and he froze.

"Are you-… Are you laughing?" the carrot-top queried suspiciously, watching in shock as the Toushiro's shoulder shook harder, the hand covering his mouth hardly stifling the little sounds that were spilling from the boy's lips and between his fingers. Doubling over to possibly fight off the urge to guffaw like a maniac, the younger male barely showed any resistance as Ichigo boldly grasped the thin little wrist to pull Hitsugaya's palm away from his face. "You _are_ laughing! Damn, I thought you didn't possess the ability to do that!"

"Shut up." Toushiro managed, his fit getting worse the moment his eyes landed on the taller one's victorious grin. "Shut up. You're crazy. You're _crazy_."

"How am _I _crazy Mr. Tim Burton?"

Forcing himself to calm down, Hitsugaya finally leaned back, a cheeky little smile still adorning his lips as he shook his head condescendingly before glancing at the man beside him.

"You put up with me." He explained quietly, his head tilting to the side a little. "No one puts up with me."

Beside him Ichigo let his features relax in the gentlest of smiles, his hand that was still wrapped around the smaller one's wrist moving a bit to graze a timid thumb across the pale flesh.

"I'm willing to put up with you every day if you'd let me."

* * *

><p><strong><em>AN: Ta-da! I hope it wasn't too slow. Make me happy and I'll update soon. ^^ _**


	2. Chapter 2

**_A/N: YES! I am back! I am back, and I updated! This story will probably be a four-shot after all, seeing as I had a simpler ending in my mind, but now I thought of a better, more complex one. I'm sorry if this chapter didn't live up to your expectations. This whole story sounds a bit like... A people's story you know? I generally avoid describing dates and such, but this one couldn't go without it. Side note: this song is a really good, if slightly short one. I like the line with the clouds the most for some reason. It's Trey Songz's Interlude for his album 'Passion, Pain and Pleasure'. Just look up 'Pain (Interlude)' by him and you should be good. _**

**_I don't even like the rest of his songs, but meh. Pleaaasee be nice and review._**

**_P.S. I have an idea about a small 2-3chapter sequel of this thing. I want to hear opinions about a potential something like that and whether you would like to see it all written in this same story and marked as 'Part Two' or if you'd like it to be posted separately, like a different story. _**

**_P.P.S. For all the GinHitsu lovers out there, go read my friend Doublebend's story 'Telling Thoughts'. It's an amazing piece that needs appreciation. Thank you. :3  
><em>**

* * *

><p>Iridescent<p>

Chapter 2

…_Hurts when I laugh sometimes, feels good when I cry._

_Tell me when you're lookin at me, can you see the pain in my eyes._

_As the stars shine deep in the night sky._

_As the sun sits way above the clouds._

_As the world spins, time and time again._

_Look at myself, wondering where I've been…_

"Momo, _please_, those knowing looks are really infuriating."

"You're meeting him again tonight, aren't you?"

"None of your business."

"Aww, Shiro-chan, that's so sweet! Did he kiss you yet?"

Letting out an exaggeratedly loud sigh, Toushiro spun on his heel and pointed his still unused toothbrush at his cousin the way one might do with an actual weapon.

"For the last time," the boy gritted out, glaring daggers at the girl who was leaning sideways against the bathroom's doorframe, a small brazen smile gracing her lips. "My personal life is of no interest to you!"

"That's a no then." Hinamori cooed, folding her arms in front of her chest with a complacent arch of her right brow as she watched Hitsugaya roll his eyes before turning back to the sink.

"He's just taking it slow." He muttered gruffly, squeezing an even amount of toothpaste all along the length of the brush, lips forming something that faintly resembled a pout. He half-expected his cousin to let things go at this point (seeing as there wasn't much piquancy to share yet), but instead a strange, low, and painfully familiar sound reached his ears, causing him to lift his gaze to look at Hinamori's reflection in the mirror. Still in the confines of the bathroom's doorframe, she was staring at his back lazily, shaking her head and clicking her tongue with the same disturbing smirk that Toushiro found oh-so-odious. "Fuck. What _now_?"

"It's only been like a week and a half and you're getting restless." She pointed out in a sing-song voice, making one of those girly, playfully miff faces that the boy hated so much. "You really like him, huh? Really, really like the 'evil stalker' you've been nagging me about, no?"

"Shut up. That is _not _true!" Hitsugaya instantly objected lifting his index finger to point it accusingly at Momo's reflection rather than making the effort to turn around. "I just haven't had any in a pathetically long amount of time. I'm still a teenager, I'm sexually frustrated and he isn't helping."

"_Ew_, Shiro-chan!"

Hitsugaya paused for a moment, a victorious smirk slowly dissipating across his face as an impressively cunning enlightenment popped in the form of an imaginary bulb in his head.

"Are you getting out of this bathroom now, or are you staying to hear the details?" he asked her sweetly and within a second the door slammed shut behind Hinamori's hysterically retrieving form.

Taking a moment to congratulate himself for a job well-done, Toushiro let out a deep breath, a content smile adorning his lips before he shoved the toothbrush in his mouth and proceeded to pretty much grate his teeth clean. He wasn't going to go and give his cousin the pleasure of admitting that she had been right, that Ichigo wasn't so bad and that,_ in fact_, Kurosaki happened to be quite sweet and considerate most of the time (his orange-haired head not nearly as empty as the teen had expected it be)… but _yeah_, at least in front of himself he could concede that _maybe_ whatever it was that the carrot-top and he were having might as well be the healthiest thing Hitsugaya had had in his life for… quite a while. It felt almost as though he was back at school, back at those times when he would go out on a date with abundantly sweating palms and a tongue tied in a tight knot, mind blank like a piece of unused paper… and , ironically, hardly any idea of what' making out' and 'sex' really meant. _Right. So cute. _Agreeing that it would be somewhat ridiculous to roll his eyes at himself, Toushiro suppressed the urge, cleverly deciding that he was much better off being honest with himself rather than bottling things up like an immature child. There was nothing wrong in lying to everybody else (at least in his mind there wasn't), but trying to deceive your own head was just plain ludicrous.

Not so long ago he would've laughed at the thought of feeling this way towards anyone – of examining a barely blossoming liaison in search for pointless details, an _understanding_ that wasn't even going to give him any sort of emotional or mental satisfaction. Mulling over _why_s, and _how_s, and _because_s was what girls usually did and also what Hitsugaya tended to mock them about whenever he got the chance (see: Momo)… But so what? He wasn't going to go as far as to stop making fun of his cousin about her overdramatic tendencies, but he could at least admit it to himself that there was nothing wrong in brushing your teeth and thinking about a person you just might've developed _some_ liking towards… _Some_.

A little of everything was good, right…?

_Eh_…

Toushiro wasn't entirely sure why he and Ichigo were moving at a snail speed or why a supermodel of 26 with (probably) more sexual partners behind his back than his own age would not dare to make a drastic move by now, but he wasn't complaining. Rather, the tempo helped him feel more at ease in the carrot-top's presence, _relaxed _somehow that he didn't have to think about keeping up when he wasn't even sure what would be waiting for him on the other end of the racing path. Hitsugaya wasn't one of those people who'd lie through their teeth and say that sex was not important because, _damn_, it was fuckin' _vital_, but the afterglow of a pleasant escapade failed to last very long when there wasn't something _more_ involved… Even at this very moment, without having had done anything with the carrot-top, he still felt better than he had for awhile. He was considerably less surly and uncivil as of lately, less inclined to smoke a whole packet of cigarettes before dinner and all in all, just_ better_. Happiness hormones, or no happiness hormones, he was enjoying the change.

For the first time in more than a year, Toushiro felt… good. He actually felt, through and through, _good_.

Hitsugaya froze for a moment, his brows knitting into a tiny, suspicious frown as his mind was unexpectedly wiped completely clean, allowing a healthy dose of puzzlement to seep into his body. Letting his hand with the toothbrush lower, he blinked a few times, observing blankly his own expression in the mirror before him as his thoughts backpedaled to what had been running through his head so very undisturbed just a moment ago.

Wait, _what_?

He blinked again, nearly sputtering the commotion of white bubbles that were sizzling in his mouth as the realization tried to sink in yet again, only to withdraw twice as quickly.

…_What_?

Bending over the sink to rinse his mouth with a few mechanical movements, Toushiro remained that way for a couple of moments before straightening up again, this time without the froth to cover the shape that his lips had molded in. He looked a bit freaked out, that much he could tell for sure, not sarcastic, bored, not even angry… just… _freaked out_.

_No__ fuckin way in hell!_

Lifting a hand to run his fingers through his hair restlessly, Hitsugaya shook his head, a peculiar sort of tremors coursing through his body as he tried to get a hold of the flips his stomach had suddenly started doing. It couldn't be. It couldn't be, right? It had only been a week and a half, just _one_ week and a half and they hadn't even _done_ anything! He couldn't be so stupid, could he? He couldn't, he was not doing it again, he had_ promised_ himself, he-… _Ugh!_

Closing his eyes for a trice, Hitsugaya let his forehead fall against the cold, smooth surface of the bathroom mirror, a low shaky sigh escaping his lips as his whole body went sort of slack against the poor support that the looking glass provided.

That's it, Toushiro. You idiot. Who the hell gave you this susceptible little heart of yours with these good-for-nothing amorous disposition?

"Fuck it…" the boy whispered, feeling strangely exhausted suddenly. "Fuck it. It's not the same."

* * *

><p>"Sooo," Ichigo drawled after Hitsugaya had closed the door behind himself and turned around, a lit cigarette bouncing jovially between his lips as he raised a pair of thin white brows at his date expectantly. "Can I <em>finally<em> take you to a fancy dinner?"

Letting his eyes roll with exaggerated tedium, Toushiro took a deep drag from his smoke and descended the two steps in front of his threshold before capturing the poisonous stick between his index and middle finger and snatching it away from his face, calmly exhaling the white fumes through his mouth the moment there was nothing in the way.

"Don't be ridiculous." He murmured evenly, showing absolutely no signs of a protest as the taller male draped his arm around the boy's shoulders and proceeded to usher him on the sidewalk. "Last time I was in a fancy restaurant, I asked the waitress if it was okay to smoke pot in the 'no smoking' department or if I had to move."

"And what did she say?"

Hitsugaya paused for a second, momentarily recalling how his father, the 'famous politician', had dropped his fork, too shocked to say anything as his son purposefully pulled out a joint and looked up at the baffled waitress with his sweetest smile.

"Hm. She said," Toushiro took another drag from his cigarette, altering his voice into a thinner, more high-pitched version as he imitated the girl's words. "_I-I guess so, s-sir. A-an ashtray? _Tch! Fucking hypocrites. As long as you look important, the world is at your fingertips, if not-… Well, go smoke pot in the playgrounds."

Ichigo let out a low chuckle, squeezing the smaller male tighter to his side as he shook his head in mock reproach.

"That really happened?"

"Yup. It was a good experiment." Glancing up at his date with the slightest bit of apprehension, he added somewhat tentatively, as though trying to apologize for something. "I never really smoked pot, I just did that to annoy my father."

The carrot-top's hand instantly started rubbing up and down Hitsugaya's clothed arm, an unspoken kind of comfort seeping in the gesture as he watched his date finish up the second half of his tobacco stick and pull out another one, deftly tucking it between his lips. "You don't get along with your parents much, huh? You don't really… talk about you family…"

"No." the boy agreed dully, frowning slightly down at the unlit end of his cigarette before pulling out a lighter and promptly fixing the issue. "My dad was a stuck-up bastard last time I saw him and my mother had no spine. Excuse me if I don't feel too proud to be their embarrassing little sprout." He felt Ichigo's fingers move up to entangle in the short strands of his hair and sighed contently, his eyes fluttering shut for a moment at the feathery feeling. "Can we not talk about it?"

"Of course. If that upsets you."

"It doesn't. My heart is made of stone." Came the immediate response and the man laughed again, urging the smaller male down a much more lively street.

"A movie then?"

"A movie it is."

* * *

><p>There were two lines in front of the cinema: one was for an animation that had apparently just come out and another that was consisted of just a few people, seeing as the premiere of the second film had been months ago. Toushiro hadn't watched either movie, so he decided to have mercy on his date and graciously picked the less popular one, smirking a little when Ichigo ordered him not to move and went to get the tickets. Stepping away from the crowd and leaning against the wall opposite of the two ticket stalls, Hitsugaya briefly considered another cigarette before the film, but chased the thought away almost immediately. He didn't <em>really<em> want a smoke, it was more like he was looking for something to do with his hands and poisoning his lungs even more than he usually did for the sake of having a minor, brief occupation… well, it was dumb to say the least.

Slumping a little against the rough surface behind his back, the boy lifted his hand to rub the back of his neck lazily, his watery gaze floating aimlessly around the scene before him without really taking anything in. He could hear some annoying song playing from somewhere above his head but, surprisingly, he didn't sense the familiar sting of vexation that tended to follow such poor music choices. Instead, as his gaze fell on the familiar tuft of orange hair that was now bouncing restlessly at the end of the line, he felt relaxed. Safe somehow. Hopeful perhaps. He was yet to admit it to himself what it was about this person that had initially irritated him so much and consequently ended up drawing him towards the man, but deep inside… deeper than he was willing to look, deeper than _deep,_ deeper than skin, blood, body, underneath so much bad memories and accusations, he knew it was lack of judgment that had touched him. The tolerance. Ichigo didn't push him or pressure him in any way, he didn't sulk, yell, demand a better treatment, _no_. He copied with Hitsugaya's foul temper with an easy-going attitude, laughing at the little sarcastic remarks that the boy spat out ever so often even when those were offensive or uncalled for. The carrot-top's hand on the boy's shoulder was always warm, welcoming somehow, and for that… for that Toushiro was grateful. He was never going to say it out loud, but he needed this. He had always, _always_ needed to feel wanted, and loved, and welcomed… so much so actually, so _badly_, that he still remembered the dull, throbbing pain when his father had greeted him with a 'Do you necessarily have to be so loud?' rather than a question of how school had been. He recalled with startling clarity every cold, polite line that had ever left his parents' mouths, he re-lived every inmost clenching inside his chest, the frustration that had kept building up day after day until it had started spilling over the brim, leaking from his pores, gushing between every cell in his organism. He remembered how bad it had pained him at first. And how frightening it had been when suddenly, inexplicably, he had woken up one morning and realized, with some sort of sick satisfaction, that he didn't care anymore. That he didn't hurt.

Not the same way he had anyway…

He had done a lot of stupid stuff after that, all random, all seemingly without any particular reason and absolutely each and every one of them had ended badly. Shrinks would call it 'attention seeking', Toushiro put it in his 'revenge' section. Possessing the exceptional ability to learn quickly and efficiently had rendered him haughty and thick-skinned even before he had entered high school. For the better, or for the worse, the boy's educational efforts had promptly been reduced to minimum without actually affecting his straight As in any way, and so Hitsugaya, lots of free time and boredom had become more or less best friends. He had come back home after three in the morning for a year before his parents even noticed the fact, and when they did, preaching the boy about the potential of getting caught by some paparazzi had only made him more inclined to keep behaving in such way. He had said nothing, just kept his lips pressed tightly together during the dry scolding, but even back then he knew this was the beginning of a pointless, winless war. He didn't mind getting lectured when he deserved it, he really didn't, but it was the way his mother had put the focus on his dad's image rather than her son's health that had made the white-haired teen's blood boil. The next day he had shown up at school drunk like a sailorman after a night of god knew what activities, and only an immediate reaction and lots of convincing funding from his father's side had shut the authority's mouths. The moralizing after that had been just as shitty as the one before, and the bruise on Toushiro's face hadn't really hurt much till the morning, so he, once again, had failed to feel guilty or inappropriate in any way. He had been caught smoking in the early hours of the day several times afterwards, as well as spray-paining, but his cigarette addiction hadn't been so bad back then, and his dad had managed to cover things up pretty successfully whenever hooliganism was involved. Hitsugaya Senior hadn't yet become a mayor back then, but he had still had a lot of money and a lot of influence… or at least _enough_ of both as Toushiro had often said through a bitter sort of laughter when his parent had withdrawn his hand from the teen's bruised face after the only physical contact that he would ever grace his son with. Underage clubbing had also been added to the list of mischiefs, but such escapades had been much rarer, seeing as the boy wasn't very fond of any party-ish atmosphere. Then, just around the elections, Hitsugaya had reached the pique of his adventures and before he had even had the time to realize what was happening, things had started to spit out of control.

The funny thing was that during that last incident, for once, _for once_ getting back at his parents had _not_ been Toushiro's aim. The boy had just wanted a glimpse of personal happiness and maybe exactly because of that audacious desire, he had paid the pricey cost of his foolishness with much more than another tenacious pursing of his lips and purple splotch or two…

Looking now at Ichigo, the boy felt understood and accepted for who he was for the first time in his life. He didn't feel pushed around for the millions of flaws that he had, didn't feel inferior, didn't feel _less_ in any way. The carrot-top didn't want, expect, _require_ anything from him. It was more like, the older male was just reveling in the little conversations they had, contemplating Toushiro, when the teen spoke, _studying_ him with a sort of fascination that no one had ever expressed towards Hitsugaya before. For better, or for the worse, it was those looks that dug the furthest in the younger one's guts, _that_ impossible to dissolve smirk that made the boy feel not only desirable, but _interesting_. Someone worth listening and talking to.

…And that was an unfamiliar sensation.

Relieving somehow…

Toushiro exhaled slowly through his nose, chewing thoughtfully on the inside on his bottom lip, and was just about to look down at his watch, when a familiar face caught his eye and he paled so fast and so much, that for a minute he thought he was going to collapse. Fighting down the frightening acceleration of his heartbeat, the boy made a move to duck in some less visible place, but it was too late, he had already been spotted.

"Shit…" futilely willing himself to look away from the man's face, he momentarily felt himself lapse in some gravity-devoid, blank, empty space, his brain refusing to cooperate. Then the guy made a step towards him, his brows furrowed with surprise, and Hitsugaya snapped back to reality. Gathering enough strength to stand on his weak knees, the boy pushed himself away from the wall and made a bee-line for the bathroom, head held low as he prayed to all deity that the man would be smart and back off.

No such luck.

"Toushiro?"

_Fuck_. Freezing on spot like an inspect, caught in a spider-web, the white-haired teen closed his eyes, weariness washing over his face before he slowly turned around, arms wrapping protectively around his body as he hunched over just a bit, refusing to meet the other one's gaze.

"Hey." Toushiro replied dully, suddenly feeling incredibly small and pathetic as the man of solid 6 feet took another step towards him, the smell of the familiar cologne that had once made him all warm and tingly on the inside, now bringing a sickening sensation to his stomach.

* * *

><p>It took Ichigo awhile to pick exactly which seats would be the most convenient ones -without many people in front of them, but not too close to the screen, either. Then, just as he was planning to walk away from the stall, a couple of squealing girls popped out of nowhere to ask for his autograph and he had to plaster that famous smile of his on his face and sign tickets until the queue of fans melted away, leaving him in peace. When he had finally turned around, he had half-expected to see his date's gaze, drilling with excessive grumpiness in his head... but instead, he found no one.<p>

Stepping away from the crowd, the carrot-top looked around, a small frown forming on his face as he tried to make out the familiar white mane somewhere among the bleary splotches of colours that had permeated the cinema's hall. He was blessed with no success. Standing awkwardly there with two tickets in hand, he quickly considered the possibility that Toushiro had just ditched him, before shaking the thought away completely. If anything, he could definitely trust the boy to proclaim the model's presence for unwanted (in case it truly was) without having to have to resort to such complex evacuation plans as this one… At least Ichigo really, really hoped so, because he had no idea where the small teen could've gone without even saying anything, or where-

…And _then_ he heard Hitsugaya's voice.

He couldn't make out what the boy was saying, more like just the buzz of his intonation (which sounded strangely shaky, verging with some highly uncommon, helpless sort of urgency), but it gave him enough direction to spot the narrow corridor at end of the hall which, judging by the signs, led to the toilets. Taking no moment to consider who Toushiro could've possibly been talking to, Ichigo made his way towards the needed spot, turning the corner just in time to see some stranger try and take the Hitsugaya's hand, only to have the younger one jerk away wildly with an indignant, firm, and maybe slightly frightened 'NO!' on his lips. Freezing with surprise, the carrot-top momentarily lost any ability to move, watching instead the scene that kept unraveling before his eyes like a badly directed play.

The man that Toushiro was talking to was quite tall and quite winsome, with sharp, angular features, long libs and surprisingly sinewy arms that looked like they could crush the boy in two if they wrapped around the petite body tightly enough. Ichigo couldn't see the stranger's face well from his angle, but he was definitely at least in his late thirties, if not older, his clothes neat, simple and expensive-looking to the very last button. From where he was standing, the carrot-top wasn't exactly hidden behind _anything_, probably positioned precisely in Toushiro's visual range, yet he remained completely unnoticed by the pair… Something that wasn't exactly a surprise, seeing as the boy was stubbornly staring down, merely shaking his head when his conversation partner kept whispering mellifluous reassuring, bent just over the shorter one's ear. The model could tell that whatever it was that this guy was trying to achieve, it wasn't to the teen's liking, not at all – rather, Hitsugaya seemed ready to run for the hills at the first chance given, the look of a caged animal becoming gradually more and more noticeable with every passing second. _What the-…? _There was something oddly disturbing about the way the boy looked, something… _unnatural_, slightly broken even, and it made the carrot-top's insides clench as he took in more details about his supposed date's appearance. Hitsugaya's whole form had assumed a startlingly uncustomary stance, his lips pressed together in a tense, white line that literally screamed of how hard he was trying to contained his emotions, and his frown, usually so glum, and untoward, and _calm_, was now a knot of pure distress - vulnerability and unwillingness etched in every shallow crease in his forehead in a manner that seemed almost physically painful.

"No!" Toushiro yelped again, trying to move out of the man's reach, but ending up trapped anyway when the larger hand grasped his arm, the scene, along with the look of disgust on the boy's face, making Ichigo's insides jolt with heat as he promptly crossed the distance between himself and the pair.

"Do you mind?" the carrot-top asked smoothly, his hand sliding along the back of Hitsugaya's neck to rest there possessively. The man's hold dropped off instantly and he redirected his gaze to the model, surprise flashing across his face momentarily before being replaced by slight, if rather bitter, amusement.

"Oh." The stranger uttered dryly, eyes fixed on Ichigo. "Aren't you that guy from the posters?"

Toushiro cleared his throat, leveling the model apprehensively for a moment, before saying:

"Kurosaki's my date tonight." he uttered steadily, a tiny frosty flicker illuminating his jade orbs as he turned to the man reluctantly. "This is Sakai Takeo. Somebody I _used _to know."

"Cold." Sakai stated with a tight smile, his attention solely on the shortest in the group. "But then again, you always have been, haven't you, Toushiro? Unable to forgive."

Hitsugaya remained silent, his gaze riveted on the man before him with stillness that could easily fooled someone less observant, someone who couldn't feel the accelerated pulse that palpitated beneath the skin on the boy's neck.

"You'd go and do the same thing all over if you're put in an identical situation. What kind of a roguish apology is this?" the teen whispered but the other one just shook his head inexorably.

"I'm just a man. You know that. You _know_ what would've happened-…"

"And I was and still am just a _boy_!" Hitsugaya cried out, much more loudly than a moment ago, a sort of bottled up frustration oozing from his words and spilling unrestrained in the open space between them "Yet I did what I had to do when it came down to it, didn't I?"

"If you're _such_ a boy, then tell me this:" Sakai gritted out with some malevolence in his tone, dark eyes flickering to Kurosaki for a moment. "Why do you keep running after older guys, huh?"

"I think that's quite enough." Ichigo cut in, his well-practiced composure cracking along the ridges as he felt Hitsugaya go tense underneath his touch, stepping back as though he was planning to make a run for it. Frowning slightly at the action, the carrot-top looked down, meeting his date's widened, trapped looking eyes with his own, soft gaze. "I would say that's a no for the movie, hm?" he smiled reassuringly at the smaller male when he received a voiceless nod, and added. "It was not very nice meeting you, Mr. Sakai. We'll be leaving now."

* * *

><p>"I'm so sorry." Hitsugaya whispered once they were out in the street, the words coming much more easily than he had expected as he closed his eyes for a moment, not daring to meet Ichigo's gaze. "I really, really am, and I'll understand if you want to go back home and-"<p>

"Why would I want to go home? The night is still young. Unless you're feeling too upset, I'd like to spend a little more time with you." He paused and Toushiro looked up, disbelief swimming in his jade orbs as he met the other one's calm, slightly concerned expression with a slack jaw. "Are you? Too upset?"

"W-what? No! But I thought after-"

"Toushiro," the man said seriously, reaching to wrap an arm around Hitsugaya's waist and pull him closer so that the boy's hands, which the teen had instinctively brought before himself, were trapped between their bodies, resting securely on Ichigo's chest. "If you want to talk about it, I'd be _more_ than happy to listen. If you don't want to, that's okay. Whatever it is that you've left behind, you've left it behind, and that's what matters. It's of no importance to me. Okay?"

"Okay." Toushiro replied weakly and the model smirked, reaching to tuck a wisp of white hair behind the boy's ear before letting go completely. Swallowing back his disappointment of the lost contact, along with a fresh lump of nerves, he added gingerly. "I want to show you something."

* * *

><p>"They stopped building it months ago. Almost a year." Toushiro explained, grazing the tips of his fingers along the tall iron chain-link fence as he stared at the skeleton of the edifice on the other side. It was a little hard to make out what was snuggling beyond the barrier as the sun had settled down long time ago and the street lamps were providing almost no-existent illumination, but with a little imagination, one could get the idea. And Ichigo had way more than just a little imagination… "I think it was supposed to be some extravagant office building, but apparently the guy who funded it went bankrupt or something, because all of a sudden, they just left it like this."<p>

"Why do I have the feeling that you don't really want them to pick the project up again?" the carrot-top murmured knowingly and he stepped beside the smaller male, hands in his pockets as he glanced down at his date playfully. Toushiro let a small, almost melancholic smile twist his lips as his fingers curled through the holes in the fence and he sighed, still contemplating the construction on the other side.

"Do you want to get in?"

"Get in?"

"Sure." Hitsugaya cooed, shooting the taller male a challenging smirk. "Get in. Over the fence."

Then, without waiting for an answer, and barely giving the stunned man a chance to digest the newly arrived information, Toushiro linked his fingers through the wire and began to deftly mount the barrier, chuckling a little when Ichigo's eyes went wide with shock.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the carrot-top hissed, looking around frantically to see if someone had noticed. The street was empty. Turning back to the boy, the model momentarily reached for Hitsugaya's ankle, but quickly withdrew, fingers clenching in frustrated fists when he realized that touching the younger male could result in Toushiro falling off. "Come down? Please?"

"No." the teen countered easily, climbing the last meter before jumping over it and landing agilely on the other side. "Are you coming?"

"I don't think-"

Hitsugaya cut him off with a snort mid-sentence before placing his hands on his hips, his weight resting on his right leg as he eyed the other man pointedly.

"Don't tell me you're scared to break a nail."

"We're going to get arrested." Ichigo stated with as much authority as he could possibly muster, but the younger male just scoffed, rolling his eyes expressively.

"What's your point again?"

"Toushiro-"

"We're not going to do anything wrong, okay?" the boy insisted, looking a bit impatient now, restless. "If they catch us, we'll say we got lost because you don't know the neighbourhood."

Ichigo somehow doubted such excuse would be passable (for more reasons than one) but sighed, deciding to oblige anyway.

* * *

><p>It took the carrot-top a little longer than Hitsugaya to surmount the awesome ordeal that was the chain-link fence. Toushiro wasn't in a hurry, so he pulled out a cigarette and lit it, watching with a great, if silent, amusement, as the taller male tried to simultaneously climb up and be aware of whether someone was in the immediate vicinity to spot him. That included a lot of turning his head from side to side, pausing, squinting, grunting, and, understandably, some snickering from the white-haired teen's side.<p>

Once Ichigo had his feet solidly on the ground, the teen spun around on his heel and started walking away, not really bothering to look over his shoulder to see if the taller male was coming. Hitsugaya could swear he heard an exaggerated sigh behind his back, but that only made the edges of his lips curl upwards a little, as the sound was followed by hurried steps and next thing he knew, an arm had found its way around the boy's waist. For a few moments neither of them spoke, Toushiro smoking his cigarette silently as he guided them further away from the street, deeper into the foundations of the abandoned building and around the labyrinth of roofless walls until they were standing on the other side, contemplating the scene from an angle that left everything in a shower of silver moonlight.

"You can't see it, can you?" the boy murmured, leaning a little against the other male as he gazed at the unfinished edifice before him. "It's all just ruins to you."

"I can see it if you show me." The taller male noticed half-teasingly. "What do you see?"

A tiny, strangely distant smile grazed the smaller one's lips as Hitsugaya let his eyelids halfway to cover his eyes. Like a cat, stretching his elongated, spindly muscles at the threshold of an imminent slumber, he gave up a low purr and slothfully hummed at the back of his throat as his slightly glazed over irises moved along the length of the scenery.

"I see a gallery." He whispered with an almost clandestine sort of tone, surprised just a bit to hear the other man let out a tiny encouraging sound as though expecting to hear the rest of some very captivating fairy tale. Toushiro nearly smiled at the thought, daring to steal a quick glance at the taller male with the corner of his eye before settling his gaze back on the scene in front of him, this time with a very deep, nagging comprehension of the fact that there was someone next to him. For all this time, after numerous, countless visits to this site, only now did he realize he had never brought anyone here before. Not even Momo. And yet, having Ichigo with him at his little imaginary castle didn't feel strange or awkward… Not at all. _Can you see what I see? Can you hear the same croon of warm earth, the stone creaking and the air clashing against harder bodies? _Toushiro exhaled very slowly through his nose and lifted the nearly finished cigarette to his now chapped lips to take in one last drag before chucking it carelessly to the side with his thumb and index finger. His digits felt strangely empty when they disposed of their ill-scented accessory and so they involuntarily fumbled about in the thin air in search for their 'precious' until another hand grasped his own and the void vanished like a mirage in a hot summer day. Hitsugaya glanced obliquely at the palm, pressing against his own and felt an uncustomary tightness gather in his throat. It was all so very familiar and yet so_, so_ different. Much like a year or so ago, he wanted to regret this and couldn't bring himself to, no matter how hard he tried. So instead, he stood there beside this near stranger and just sank in the comfort of the taller, larger, more mature body with barely surfacing avidness, neatly masked covetous craving for more: more warmth, more attention, caresses… affection. Like an old, quaint doll, left in the attic for an undefined period of time, he felt suddenly picked up, brushed off the dust, the thin, silvery spider-webs and summoned again to display his once lacerated sheen. His virtues…

His…

Toushiro swallowed thickly.

…His sins.

"Just think about it. About these walls, as ugly and useless as they look to you right now." Hitsugaya tried, his voice strangely raspy, rifting like enfeebled, aged wood despite his efforts. "White. Clean, freshly painted. Now, imagine them… covered with colors. Pictures of anything really. Large, overwhelming scenes that want to swallow you, confuse, envelop, suck you in…" he paused, self-conscious suddenly when the demurring fragment of his fantasy tried to pull away from his grasp and lips much like a shy kitten, meeting a stranger for the first time. "A labyrinth of unconventional art… Wouldn't it be amazing to lose your way in there?"

Ichigo remained silent for a few moments and Toushiro felt his lungs contract with the effort to keep his own mouth shut. It all resembled too much sharing some dirty, long-kept secret and during one short trice, the boy cursed himself in earnest for saying anything. It was, after all, his own crazy idea to develop, his own plan to plot and strive after, as impossible as he knew it was. He needed this little sparkle inside his head to light his life, put some illumination in the darkness he was so blindly wading around in, and he didn't care, _couldn't allow himself to care_, about what others thought… About how pathetic he would seem in any reasonable person's thoughts.

"Kyouraku mentioned something about you doing graffiti." The carrot-top noticed finally, a tad bit of humour flashing in his tone, not unkindly though. "He sounded quite impressed about what you could do, although he never gave me much information, probably assuming automatically that I already knew everything... You know, he's the manager of quite a few famous faces out there. If he says you're good, that probably means you're too talented to cast aside."

Hitsugaya's brows shot upwards in two equally sharp arches before he snorted and let out a curt, dry laughter, his muscles tensing under the clothes as a stab of painful disbelief pierced his ribs.

"What he saw was just a little more than a napkin sketch." He pursed his lips and made a move to pull his hand out of the taller male's grasp with absolute disregard to the hurt look that flashed in Ichigo's eyes. Instead, Toushiro clenched his hands into fists and trapped the emptiness within his palm the way a desperate man clutches the shadow of his last spent coin and slowly disentangled himself from the model's arms. "You don't have to talk sugary shit to have me fawning over you, Kurosaki."

"That wasn't my intention at all." The man said softly, frowning just a little when Hitsugaya finally stepped away from him and turning to face him with a hard, slightly fretful look. "Maybe it's not such an impossible ambition to follow, huh? Opening your own gallery, developing what has already been given to you and showing it off to the world, like you've been supposed to all along."

Toushiro couldn't help the small chuckle that broke from his lips as he shook his head, forcing himself to rip his gaze away from the burning chocolate eyes and rivet them on the peeling walls to his right instead.

"Do you know how much work this would need? Not only the restoration of the place itself… There'll have to be some sort of a tent over this whole place to keep it dry. People to take care of guarding and maintaining it, painters, other than me… And those are just the possible problems that I can think of right now. The easily resolved ones." he bit the edge of his bottom lip for a moment and shrugged one shoulder, an uneasy sort of mood shining in the gesture. "I dream and think about this because I'm a human being. We all need to cling to something unattainable to keep existing, but… But I don't want pink smoke to try and grasp as a life-line. I'd rather look for real rope."

With that said and done, Toushiro shoved his strangely numb hands deep in his pockets and made a move to mimic his steps back to the chain-linked fence, only to feel something grasp his arm and pull him back. He stumbled a little in the unwanted direction, too surprised to resist, but instead of landing on the slightly moist soil beneath his feet, he collapsed right in the awaiting embrace of his date.

"Kurosaki-" he started, the demur already forming icily on his tongue, but he never got to finish his sentence as a pair of soft lips landed on his own, causing him to take a sharp breath in and blink stupidly for a moment. There was no rush in the kiss though, no persistence, hunger, cruelness. Rather, it was an almost timid, unsure one, moving gently and sending a wave of warmth to course through the smaller one's frame like an alleviating antidote for his half-poisoned body.

Catching up with the gesture just a few seconds later – the time that was needed for all the uncertainty and irritation to melt away – he arched his back, wrapping his arms around the model's neck and pulling him flush against his smaller figure with audacity that he had a tough time extinguishing just yet. Quickly, almost too quickly, he tilted his head to the side and opened his mouth, inviting Ichigo in for a deeper, more intense kiss, like an impatient child, trying to swallow his long-awaited sugary treat as fast as he can before anyone had tried to take it away from him. An arm wrapped around his waist, another traveling up the small back, and the boy purred deeply in his throat, reveling in the mix of sensations. He cared not if he was rushing things, if he was too needy, too insistent… He wanted this. He had craved and needed to be kissed in such a way for a long, long time… Maybe forever, maybe an almost forever, it felt equally horrid either way. For the first time, he dared hope that maybe he had found someone right for him, someone to see beneath his biting exterior, someone to hold him like this, steal his breath away and leave him burning like a living ember rather than a true creature of flesh, and blood, and bones.

And heart.

Despite everything, Toushiro did, too, have a heart.

A heart too big for his own good.

But _that_ he was unwilling to tell just yet.

* * *

><p><strong><em>AN: Now PLEASE review? Next time: smut and drama. In the chapter afterwards - even more drama.  
><em>**


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: Excuse any mistakes. Excuse me if the lemon sucks. I'm so tired.**_

**ATTENTION: DUE TO THE RULES OF THE SITE, I HAVE REMOVED A SCENE from this chapter so as to not cause problem with its CONTENT and I have placed said scene in LIVEJOURNAL.  
><strong>

**_**Link to the story IN MY PROFILE PAGE or this:**  
><em>**

**_****queenofcitrus(then you write a dot and 'livejournal') (then a dot) (then 'com/855')(then a dot)(then 'html')****_**

**_**Please, support the petition to allow writers to have stories containing lemons - you will find the petition by googling 'petition to stop the destruction of fanfiction'**_**

**_**or... www(then dot)change(then dot)(then org)(then this /petitions/fanfiction-net-stop-the-destruction-of-fanfiction-net)  
><strong>_**

Song: Someone else by Allegro

* * *

><p>Iridescent<p>

Chapter 3

_People staring at the mirror facing someone else_

_Others doing what they shouldn't,_

_It was someone else_

_People 're lying cause they 're trying to be someone else_

_It is not you I see with that guy, must be someone else_

"Well, if it isn't Mr. Virgin Sunshine himself!" Hitsugaya announced with exaggerated pomposity as he peaked over his shoulder at the person who had just entered the kitchen, one hand making an awkward little circle in a gesture of mock veneration towards the visitor before he turned back around to tend for his breakfast (which could've been considered a very decent egg-and-ham mixture, had he not thrown inside pretty much everything he had found in the fridge along with the meat). "And what, may I ask, brings you here at such an early hour, good man?"

"Do you even know what time it is?" Ichigo asked with an amused, if slightly condescending, smile before walking up to his boyfriend and giving him a brief peck on the cheek. The gesture was eloquent enough in itself, a soft little expression of carrying that lingered a tad bit longer and a tad bit more convincingly than a mere greeting to the skin of the receiver, but the usual '_Slept __well?_' followed nonetheless, and Toushiro's eyes fluttered shut in silent, invisible delight for merely a second.

_Mmm…_

He caught himself before one of those very much exposing smiles had managed to break on his face, but even with the urgent effort to hold back applied full-power, his mouth somehow managed to betray him, curling in an almost imperceptible manner at the ends even as his jade orbs remained obstinately glued on what he was stirring. He could sense the taller male hovering expectantly behind his back for a couple of moments, but he knew it was much more of a teasing habit that the carrot-top had developed recently than a serious plot to wheedle a kiss from the younger male.

"Nothing?" the model inquired after a moment, but this time his voice had adopted a radically different tone, a bit thicker than before, huskier around the edges, and Toushiro had to press his lips together in a painfully thin line to keep himself from letting out a sound. A small part of him wanted to burst into curses that he had picked such a loose, oversized T-shirt to sleep in, as it bared his left shoulder in a way that Ichigo had clearly noticed (his warm breath now tickling the boy's skin ever so delicately, irrevocably sending long, bone-wracking shudders down the teen's spine), yet the bigger, much more overwhelming half of Hitsugaya refused to feel anything but sickeningly vindictive. Forcing his body to relax, muscles going slack with intentionally implied sloth and unwillingness, the white-haired lad let out an exaggeratedly exasperated sigh before declaring loudly:

"Nope. I haven't woken up yet." The words were simple, but it was the mood-killing tone that did it. There was a hesitant pause behind him, an expectant little gap in the flow of time that was probably deliberately put there to make Hitsugaya reconsider, but those hopes all proved to be in vain… Toushiro wasn't budging. Instead, he had to literally bite his bottom lip to desist from smirking as he sensed the other one's reluctant and very, _very_ slow withdrawal, the action making the boy's insides tingle both from disappointment and a certain deep, fiendish kind of emotion that he didn't care to define.

In any other circumstances, the white-haired teen would've probably given in to the little 'hello' flirt that the carrot-top had been trying to lure him into, but by now he had learned (the hard way) that such games ended up basically nowhere and left him unsatisfied and much more annoyed than he was ever going to admit out loud. _Two__ whole __months __and __still __just __kisses?_As he heard his boyfriend pull out a chair from underneath the nearest table and plop in it, Toushiro couldn't help the expressive grimace that emerged on his face along with the obtrusive little question that he had been battling to get an answer for for the last month and more. _Why__ are __we__ still __just __on __the __fuckin__' __kissing __stage!_How had he even let that happen? _The __hell_ was Ichigo thinking, that they were in, _what_, high school? This was going _way_ too slowly for Hitsugaya's taste, waaay too slowly and waaaaay too unproductively. They were moving in these ridiculous, endless circles, circles, circles, rather than forward, forward, _forward_, and even if Toushiro couldn't even _consider_ admitting something this embarrassing to anyone (and especially himself), he found it incredibly unnerving how his boyfriend always seemed to be in such well-handled control over his own body, his composure, and yeah, basically his _hands_, which the carrot-top appeared to be able to keep in all those decent places that the boy wanted to remove them from. Any guy would've done something by now. _Any__ guy_. And the mere fact that someone as winsome and attractive as Ichigo would not only not try, but openly back away when Toushiro attempted to take matters in his own hands, was incredibly frustrating.

Also, it somehow made the boy feel astoundingly self-conscious about his own appearance. And that had never, _ever_ happened before. Not in high school, not after, not even now, no matter how much time had passed since his last real relationship. Hitsugaya still got ogled when he walked down the streets, he still attracted gawks from enough representatives of both genders, and if he took the valiant step to try to visit one of those bars he had been so fond of a couple of years back, he was sure he'd get at least half a dozen men to buy him a drink… but _Kurosaki_… Kurosaki was obviously somehow broken in that department.

And it wasn't even funny!

"It's two in the afternoon, Toushiro." Came the carrot-top's even voice, the sound of it effectively landing the smaller male back in reality and making him blink dumbly a couple of times. Oh, right. Ichigo was still here.

"That's interesting." The teen mumbled after a few moments, reaching absently to pull a packet of cigarettes out of the side pocket of his sweats and poise one between his index and middle finger. "I just got up. However could that be connected to the six movies and a half that I watched till five in the morning?"

"You could've called me for the film marathon." Ichigo noticed, not unkindly, a small snicker escaping his lips as Toushiro lifted his hand and wagged his index finger in an edifying manner.

"That would've ruined my excellent show of self-control." The teen noted vaguely, the side of his mouth quirking upwards as he gave the man a pointed glance over his shoulder before lifting the thin tobacco stick to his lips and lighting it in a drawn out, almost erotic series of movements. As he exhaled the first dose of white fumes through his teeth, relishing in the bitter, intoxicating taste that never failed to soothe his nerves, Toushiro was carried to the drift of another flood of thoughts, these ones much more sober and logical than what Ichigo and he had been discussing previously.

"Did Momo let you in?"

"Yeah, you don't seem too bothered to answer the door, do you?"

"That's because it's always bad news." Toushiro countered easily as he steadied the cigarette between his lips and languidly lowered his hand to the counter, leaning against it in a manner that ended up (not completely unintentionally) exposing even more of the milky shoulder. He neither sensed, nor heard any reaction from the man behind him and the idea made him want to groan out loud. Kurosaki should've been on his knees by now, begging for forgiveness - and probably not receiving it - but apparently his will was a bit harder to bend than that. No matter. It was his loss anyways. "Besides," he continued, a bit more acidly than intended "Don't you know that it's not polite to bother someone so early in the morning?"

"It's two in the afternoon." Ichigo repeated flatly but the other boy just ignored him with a roll of his eyes, going back to his 'cooking' with an incoherent little murmur. There was a long silence after that, the kind that stretched comfortably between two people who weren't entirely willing to pick up a serious topic just yet, and Hitsugaya didn't mind. He knew it was quite unusual for the model to pop on his doorstep (fine, _kitchen_) at this hour without a reason, and the reason he was genuinely interested in, he just wasn't sure if he was in the mood to kill somebody's (Kurosaki's) foolish dreams when the day hadn't even blossomed fully yet. Whatever it was that Ichigo hadn't dared to bring up yet, it _had_ to be something Toushiro would not be very fond of going along with. Something likely to be very stupid. And while it was frustrating to be left in the dark because of somebody else's poor excuse of a plotting, he didn't mind waiting nearly as much as he assumed he would. _Why?_Because. If he had to be completely honest with himself, Hitsugaya needed to admit that what irritated him much more than the fact that Ichigo was being silent, was the perspective that, well, the carrot-top was apparently deeply delusional that if he picked the right moment, he could somehow end up getting things his way. And that was _not_ going to happen. Sure, Toushiro could seem a bit immature at times - _if __one __took, __for __example, __this __very __moment_ – and instead of doing what he was supposed to do – _like,__ say,__ cooking_- he resembled a child who was poking at an ant-hill with a stick… But that was irrelevant and it led to all sorts of wrong conclusions about his ability to make valid arguments…

Because he could! Make valid arguments, that is.

…With that cleared out, Toushiro nodded to himself with satisfaction and leaned over the frying pan to take a closer look at his very own egg mixture and make sure it wasn't burning. It miraculously wasn't. Yet. Just as he was about to pull back and announce his meal as prepared (while it could still be considered edible), the paper confines around the ash-tip of his cigarette managed to burn _just_ a little bit further, baring _just_ a little bit more of the grey substance, and before the boy had had the time to comprehend what was happening, the dust had collapsed in his breakfast, mingling awfully with a large proportion of it.

"Oops." Hitsugaya uttered softly, the low coughing sound coming behind his back quickly informing him that Ichigo had witnessed the unfortunate incident. Double oops.

"You're going to eat that?" the carrot-top asked incredulously and Toushiro immediately turned around, a tight, fake grin adorning his face as he pulled the frying pan off the stove and hastily strode to the table to pour the eggs in the plate he had left there.

"I wasn't really cooking it for myself."

"Then who were you cooking it for?"

"You, of course!" Toushiro chirped with exaggerated enthusiasm, wincing secretly at the very much untrustworthy sound of his own voice. "I have been making you breakfast _all __morning __long_."

"It's two in the afternoon." Ichigo deadpanned before jerking his head towards the plate lazily. "And I saw cigarette ash fall in that."

Hitsugaya immediately adopted an incredibly wounded expression, both hands landing on the table before him with a loud thud as he tilted in the direction of his boyfriend in what appeared to be a genuine display of indignation.

"No such thing happened! I am truly offended by this vile accusation." Except, at that same moment his cigarette, which was still bouncing jovially on the end of his mouth, crumbled some more, the product of said crumbling landing in the eggs for a second time, effectively making the cook glare at his smoke. _Curse __you,__cheap __cigarettes! _Instantly dropping the act, Toushiro pulled back with a groan and plopped dramatically (if a little stiffly) in the chair opposite of the carrot-top, his lips now twisted in a stubbornly uneven line. "Fine. Why are you here? It's pretty early for a date. I mean, I barely got up, it's morning."

"It's two in the afternoon. And I'm aware, I came to see if you had any plans for the next few hours."

"Yeah, I do." Hitsugaya offered earnestly, crossing his legs and slumping lazily in his seat. "I was planning to jerk off some more before noon. Seeing as you insist on keeping me sexual frustrated, I'm forced to take drastic measures to preserve my fragile physical health."

Ichigo didn't appear bothered by the statement in the slightest, his lean body shifting a little as he obviously prepared himself for a good half an hour of bickering.

"You just keep saying things like that, because you enjoy startling people."

"Well, I mean, who _knows_. I might be lucky and give somebody a heart attack one of these days." Taking a long, imperturbable drag from his now finishing cigarette, the white-haired teen arched a single, somewhat challenging brow at his boyfriend. "Tell me, honest, are you asexual?"

Ichigo's jaw went slack.

"What?" he gasped, looking more than just appalled. "No! NO! Of course not!"

"Eunuch?" Hitsugaya tried again, not even missing a beat.

"What the-… _what?_"

"If you have some strange physical aberration, you better tell me right now." Toushiro stated dryly, the blank tone of a scientist that searched for an explanation quickly taking over his voice. In front of him, Ichigo choked.

"Where is this all coming from?" the carrot-top inquired, a baffled frown emerging on his face even as the smaller male let out a rather loud snort and threw his hands in the air, obviously exasperated.

"I just can't figure out why a person your age would not want to have sex with their very much willing boyfriend, is all." Hitsugaya reasoned with a tad bit more persistence that Ichigo had probably expected. _Why __is __this __so __hard __to__ comprehend?_ The carrot-top's shoulders visibly relaxed, a very much frustrating kind of relief splashing across his features as he leaned back in his chair as opposite of the alerted stance that the smaller male had ended up assuming. _Unbelievable._"You're not going to explain yourself?"

For a trice the model looked like he was genuinely trying not to laugh, his breath hitching funnily as he registered the suspicion in the boy's voice and obviously connected it to some other, very important part in his own brain.

"Toushiro… I don't want _this,_" he gestured meaningfully between the two of them, brown eyes never once leaving the thunderously flashing jade ones in front of him. "To be like that."

"Then how do you want it to be?" uncrossing his legs with throat-tightening grace, Toushiro leaned forward to stub out his cigarette at the end of his egg-filled plate, the edges of his lips now shaping quizzically. "Do explain to me, because I really want to get physical with my guy, and I kindda fail to see anything wrong in that."

"Trust me, I want to get there, too-"

"Then what's the problem?" Okay, Hitsugaya was seriously getting irritated now. If Ichigo found it funny to play the 'virgin bride', the least he could do was put it on the table right now!

"Problem is… Problem is, I want to _prove_ to you that this isn't about sex." He paused, brows knitting together for one long, thoughtful moment before he added again, this time much more soothingly. "That it's not the same like with, you know, all the rest."

"That's really sweet." Toushiro said aridly, swiftly getting to his feet and walking to the refrigerator, his back facing the carrot-top as he bent down to search for some orange juice. "I don't do sweet, so let's drop the subject. What did you come here for, again?"

He could sense Ichigo adjust in his seat – legs, arms, body, rearranging hesitantly - and the fidgety kind of movement, painfully familiar by now, let him know that he wasn't going to be okay with what was to follow.

"I want to take you out. It's Saturday, so we don't really need to wait till the evening. Plus, we've never really-"

Toushiro slammed the door of the refrigerator so hard, the whole machine shook violently and the sound echoed around the kitchen dully and unpleasantly, as though trying to mimick the teen's sudden change of mood.

"Absolutely not." Hitsugaya snapped turning around to give his boyfriend a soul-freezing glare. "Absolutely _fuckin_ not! How many times do I have to tell you that going out in public is out of the question?"

Ichigo didn't seem nearly as impressed by the upcoming tantrum as the first time that the boy had reacted in such a way towards a similar suggestion. A palpable sort of weariness, the kind that parents sometimes showed when dealing with impertinent kids, filled up his warm brown eyes to the brim, but other than making Toushiro even more frustrated, they did nothing to appease him.

"If you just think about it-"

"There is _nothing_ to think about!" the boy exclaimed, hand making a wide diagonal line across the air before him in order to make his point reach its assigned destination. "I cannot afford getting myself stuck in another mess because people can't keep their mouths shut."

"Okay, this is starting to get ridiculous." The carrot-top stated with a kind of slightly artificial smoothness that cracked haphazardously as he spoke, irrevocably revealing flashes of tired impatience underneath the slick surface. When the smaller male merely shook his head and strode back to the table, pale lips parting in preparation for another argument, Ichigo hurried to add: "What could be so wrong about flaunting around a little?"

"You don't know this town." Hitsugaya growled sternly as he folded his arms over his chest in a stiff bundle of limbs – a gesture that made him look startlingly much like a culprit that refused to admit his guilt. "You don't know the people. _I_ know them, and _they_ know _me_, and this is why we should drop this topic right now. I'm not okay with this."

"Then, please, do tell me _why_ you're not okay with it!" Ichigo insisted, slowly rising from his chair to step up in front of the shorter male, the look of deep, molten concern in the depths of his chocolate orbs nearly having Toushiro waver for a moment. "What are you ashamed of? Being seen with a guy?"

"Fuck, no!" the boy sneered, jerking away when the orange-haired bloke tried to touch his cheek in some silly show of affection. "I've been out of the closet ever since I turned thirteen, I don't give a damn what they think about my sexual orientation. I don't care what they think about me, period."

"Then what is it?"

Tourhiso's eyes narrowed aggressively and he took a defensive step back, suddenly resembling a stung dog much more than the nineteen-year old teenager that he really was.

"You're being remarkably intrusive this morning." He stated acidly. "Did you possibly grow a backbone overnight?"

"And you're trying to subject me to your very own type of verbal abuse, which means you're uncomfortable. What's going on, Toushiro?"

Hitsugaya's lips pressed together in a thin line and his jaw tightened with strain, his whole body language hinting that he was planning to spit out a supremely unpleasant retort, only to have that idea thwarted when someone loudly cleared their throat.

That had them both pausing to look in the direction of the sound.

"Hey, again." Hinamori greeted amiably, leaning against the door-frame at the back of the kitchen as she gave Ichigo a charming little smile (completely and purposefully ignoring her now grimacing cousin). "Still persisting to take our beloved Prince of Darkness out in the perilous world of sunshine and goodness?"

"If I combust spontaneously, instead of blinding you with my brilliant sparkle, who's going to clean up the mess?"

"You're losing your edge, Shiro-chan."

"Shut up."

"Now that we cleared that out," Momo began again, once more addressing the model. "I have just one question for you, Ichigo: have you seriously not figured out how to make Toushiro do things for you, yet?"

"I'm still standing here…" Hitsugaya noticed in a fake sing-song voice that the other two conveniently pretended not to have heard.

"What do you mean?" Ichigo asked slowly, his brows furrowing with the strain to decipher what the girl was telling him. "Cuz I don't really-"

"Get the roof fixed." Hinamori cooed slyly, already pushing herself from the door-frame. "Or in other words: just give him something he really wants. That way both of you win and both of you lose." And when she turned to walk away from the kitchen, Ichigo glanced curiously at the smaller male, a thoughtful look emerging on his face as he contemplated his scowling boyfriend.

"Maybe you could spend the night at my place afterwards?"

* * *

><p>Dragging one knee to his chest without care for the upholstery that he was probably ruining, Toushiro curled even further in the backseat of the car, his temple pressed against the cool window as he moodily observed the world outside through his cheap sunglasses. The baseball hat that he had left beside his thigh upon entering the vehicle had bounced off to the floor along with one of the more palpable bumps and had ended up in his feet, completely and utterly forgotten. Unlike the hot, sticky July weather outside, the temperature in the automobile was pleasantly low, keeping the teen's innate intolerance towards heat at bay and effectively restraining him from complaining just yet. As a result, Ichigo and he were swimming in a pool of silence that was only broken by the taller one's half-muffled humming – a sound that Hitsugaya easily tuned out, too busy realizing that his brows were beginning to ache from the permanent frown that they were forced in. It was peculiar, Toushiro decided, to feel so oddly uneasy and so utterly uncomfortable for no obvious reason. His chest was downright rumbling with restlessness every time he thought about how much of a weak will he apparently had to agree to go out in broad daylight, just for the purpose of some eventual entertainment back at home. A part of him tried to argue that he had just been looking for a good excuse to go along with the carrot-top's idea, but he banished that thought away almost as soon as it had sprouted in his consciousness. If there was <em>anything<em> that he genuinely wanted right now, it was to reduce his body to an inconspicuous little speck and just get this day over and done with without losing his mind…

He sensed Ichigo's gaze land on him through the rear-view mirror, but pretended not to have noticed anything, as he wasn't entirely sure he'd be able to bear the soft twinge of slyness that he knew he'd find in the pair of chocolate orbs. The 'great destination', in the form of a large car park was already coming into view anyway, and so there was no point in complaining... Hitsugaya just needed to suck it up and try not to let his anxiety get the best of him, if that was possible…

…Even if the local three-day fun fair was by far the worst choice that the model could come up with for their first out-in-the-open date.

"And we're here!" Ichigo declared a minute later, successfully turning the engine off and unbuckling the safety belt, that obnoxiously gleeful tune falling back on his lips as soon as he announced their arrival. Toushiro felt a wave of nausea wash over him at the positive energy that was emitting from the taller one's body, and instead of replying, he pulled away from the window with a groan and reached to run a stiff hand through his hair. His fingers felt sticky and numb against his scalp, unable to recognize the contact properly, and so he pulled them away with annoyance, teeth flashing to give his lower lip a tug. A low click sounded from his right, and then the door was being pulled open for him, a tanned hand sticking inside to offer him help.

"C'mon, no chickening out now." Ichigo said gently and Hitsugaya turned his head to give the man a half-concealed glare through the matted plastic of his spectacles.

"I'm not a girl, you fucker!" he snapped more out of habit than anything else before slinking out of the vehicle on his own. As the carrot-top pushed the door closed behind him, Toushiro couldn't help it but feel, once-again, a modicum of self-consciousness creeping up his spine at the sight of the man that was now standing right next to him with such an obnoxious little smirk on his face. There he was, Kurosaki Ichigo, successful model, the face of half the existing commercials and ads in the country, clad in simple but mind-blowingly expensive jeans and T-shirt, and basically representing perfection in its purest form. And then there was Hitsugaya… Short, sullen, bitchy, wearing a dark shirt with random imitations of spray-painted inscriptions all over it and black trousers with chaotically attached decorative zippers, combined with a pair of purposelessly hanging suspenders… and a look that simply screamed 'bedraggled and immature'.

Oh, God, he was ridiculous.

Toushiro tried not to think about it as he was led towards the entrance, the hand at the small of his back adding to his discomfort, rather than reducing it, and so he squared his shoulders and cleared his throat, vaguely grateful when Ichigo understood the hint and withdrew. There were strings of people flocking together towards the fair, little rivulets, rushing to join the main one into an ocean of faces that produced far more noise and laughter than the boy was customarily willing to brook. There were people of all ages – babies, small children, teenagers, parents and, surprisingly, quite a few elderly men and women. It looked like half of Karakura had chosen this very moment to have fun, and Toushiro found it rather disgusting. The smell of sweating bodies and mingling perfumes was the last thing that he wanted to experience on a Saturday afternoon, and had it not been for Ichigo, he would've already absconded the scene like a bug, running away from a fire.

He felt a knuckle drag down his bare arm and turned to look at companion, features softening a bit.

"Anything I can do to make you relax faster?" the carrot-top suggested mildly and Hitsugaya had to bite his lower lip to keep himself from returning at least half of the contagious grin that had spread across the other one's face.

"I haven't had cotton candy in centuries." He admitted after a moment of musing and Ichigo let out a deep chuckle, his lips parting in preparation to say something, when a piercing squeak made them both freeze.

And then it happened.

Toushiro had heard, and read, and watched stuff about fan-girl stampedes attacking the object of their undying devotion, but he had _never_ seen it happen live. He had never _imagined_ that he would, not is his worst nightmares, his most insane reflections, _or_ his most ridiculous dreams, _no__…_ not ever. So when he and Ichigo crossed the entrance of the fair, both of them completely uncaring about the human population that surrounded them, the last thing that Hitsugaya expected was to see a group of teenage girls catch a glimpse of them and without much care about the scene they were causing, rush towards the carrot-top like a large, horribly destructive tsunami.. Being smart enough to step to the side, Toushiro managed to miraculously not be stamped by the apocalyptic number of what must've been a dozen and a half females, and watched in bewilderment as the strangers surrounded the very much uncomfortable-looking model, screaming senseless exclamations of love and excitement one over the other. As he surveyed the scene unravel to its full potential, Toushiro had to admit that he was slightly intimidated by what was happening, his hand automatically finding his pocket and the packet of cigarettes there, even as his eyes remained obstinately glued on what was happening before him. He could tell Ichigo was really fighting to remain calm and understanding, signing whatever these girls wanted him to, and doing his best to answer their flood of questions, but even a saint was going to have trouble withstanding… _this_. Hitsugaya was beginning to think that despite the pampering that the carrot-top was trying to execute on his admirers, the fans were constantly growing more in number rather than the other way around (he half expected those at the back to try and crawl their way to the front by using the other ones' bodies as bridges) and the fact made his insides jolt unpleasantly. Even after he had lit his favourite little source of placidity, he still found himself feeling strangely on edge. His fingers trembled slightly around the butt of the tobacco stick and he reached to rub his right brow with the knuckle of his thumb, a thick stream of smoke twisting like an angry snake out of his mouth. This wasn't going to work. It wasn't going to work.

Someone was going to see them, then the gossip would be out, and before Hitsugaya realized what was happening, Ichigo would _know_… And if by some miracle Toushiro had managed to avoid it getting down to this so far, there'd be no more avoiding the inevitable. Not after being seen out with the carrot-top in public, not after showing up with another man, there'd be no lenience for _him_, Karakura's very own black sheep.

A strand of hair fell in his eyes and he winced. Sure, Kurosaki was considered a celebrity, a face that was just bound to be recognized by the masses, but Hitsugaya, too, had to admit that he wasn't one to blend in with the crowd. All the photos that reporters had used to send to his father in order to get a couple of thousand bucks in exchange for their silence: they had all featured the same thing. Messy, snow-white locks, pale hands, adorned with long, slender fingers that finished with outrageous black nail-polish, lit cigarettes dangling from either between those colourless digits, or at the end of tired, chapped lips…

… and sometimes empty booze-bottles, bleary jade eyes, a dull smile… sometimes him sleeping in some strange place, or just plain unconscious, dead to the world…

Bus stations. Mostly. Occasionally a sidewalk.

But that was another matter. Right now he needed to retrieve his baseball hat from the car, and he needed to do so as soon as possible, because a mop of snowy hair was hard not to notice, and he and Ichigo were already attracting enough attention. A low profile was something he could use right now, as ironic as that sounded, and for the purpose of keeping the little that he still had left, he was willing to turn as insignificant as possible.

Taking a harsh drag from the poisonous stick that he was still balancing between his index and middle finger, he started to make his way around the noisy circle of girls, gaze determinedly glued on the parking lot that lay sprawled in the distance. It only occurred to him that he didn't have the keys to unlock the vehicle a couple of moments later, and he stopped dead in his track, distaste twisting his features in a quite ugly grimace.

"Dammit!" he murmured gruffly, several more curses bubbling in his throat like a bitter tide, but before he had had the time to let any of those out, he felt a hand take a hold of his arm and he was spun around in a way that managed to surprise him much more than bring his bitter side to the surface.

"And where do you think you're going?" Ichigo's voice, deep, velvety and set ablaze by the sheer intensity of its own conviction, made Toushiro's eyes widen, cheekbones growing hot with a sensation that had nothing to do with the heat. He felt the carrot-top's arms circle his waist, and his breath audibly hitched, the waft of warm air grazing right across the taller one's mouth in a way that cued the boy to realize just how close they were standing. A distant sign of searing red warning flashed in Hitsugaya's head at the sudden proximity, but instead of making him put up a fight, its light was easily extinguished, _wiped __out_, as the man pressed their bodies flush together and bent over a little, effectively making the teen's back form a delicate, startlingly expressive arch. Next thing Toushiro knew, Ichigo's lips were crashing against his own, and he was instantly opening up, wide, and wanton, and willing, his left arm reaching to wrap around the carrot-top's neck while his right hand that still held the cigarette automatically distanced itself from the action. Some would say that it was beyond obscene – the way the boy used his tongue: the sucks, the light grazes of teeth, and the licks that followed the end of each kiss… But he couldn't help it. It was something that he just _did_, these very deep, very vulgar, very _naked_ kind of lip-locks, that simply annihilated every last bit of modesty that one could feel. Closed-mouth exchanges were nothing. _Nothing _to him, and so he never allowed himself to waste time with those.

When Toushiro kissed somebody, the emotion and passion that he put in the action, the devotion that he expressed… it was never anything less than what he gave up when he made love with that person. He experienced it with his whole being, from head to toe, and he did not allow himself to feel anything other than utter surrender to the sensation.

Which was why, for better or for the worse, he never saw the photo being taken. Not the flash-light. Not the man who did it.

* * *

><p>"To be honest, I expected you to be really angry about what happened." Ichigo pointed out, his lips curving coyly around the edges as he caught Toushiro's half-glare through the cloud of pink sweetness that the boy was gradually stuffing in his mouth. Allowing himself a couple of moments to let the sugar melt on his tongue, Hitsugaya gave the tips of his fingers a slightly too prolonged suck before looking back at his boyfriend.<p>

"I was never one to like being smooched in front of a flock of my guy's potential girlfriends, but it got all those chicks off your back, didn't it?" he pointed out lowly, jerking his hand away when the carrot-top chuckled and reached for a pinch of the smaller one's treat. "You said you didn't want any! You don't get to eat mine now!"

"Don't you think having eaten two whole cotton-candy sticks already means you should be minding your sugar levels?" the carrot-top asked with an overly serious arch of his brow and Toushiro rolled his eyes with exasperation, already going back to nibbling the pink fluffiness with gusto.

"Sugar rush is a myth."

"You sure you're not making that up so you can stuff yourself with candy all day long?"

Toushiro didn't seem bothered by the accusation, his face remaining completely expressionlessly when the taller male slid his hand to the small of his back in the same possessive gesture that the boy had rejected earlier on.

"Yeah. There's nothing wrong with kids consuming sugar, just as long as it doesn't contain caffeine." Hitsugaya paused, leveling thoughtfully some unknown spot in the distance as he licked the glossy cotton off his lips in a painfully slow manner. "Like Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola makes your bones more breakable, that's why I don't drink it."

"Because it's unhealthy?" the carrot-top snorted, mouth twitching in a sort of an amused, disbelieving kind of a smile. "And what about cigarettes? It's okay to poison your lungs as long as you don't drink Coca-Cola?"

Toushiro wrinkled his nose at that accusation, obviously unhappy about the direction in which the conversation was going, but his answer came just as instantly as ever, the flatness of the tone informing the other male that he was starting to take the conversation as a bit of a challenge argument instead of a light chit-chat:

"Do you, possibly, want me to have poisoned lungs _and_ breakable bones? Because that could create some issues in our relationship." When Ichigo just let out a low chuckle, Hitsugaya allowed his features to relax and turned to face the taller male, a playful little smirk already forming on his lips. "C'mon. You wanted to have a taste of the cotton candy, right?"

When Ichigo slowed down to a halt and merely tilted his head to the side with interest, Toushiro snickered lowly in his throat before biting off a piece of the cotton candy and pulling the taller lad in another, if significantly briefer, kiss.

* * *

><p>The sun had long settled down when the door of Ichigo's bedroom burst open and two figures, attached to one another by the mouth, stumbled inside, clumsily heading for the bed in a sort of zigzag pattern that would've made any side-viewer laugh out loud. Hitsugaya's hands were clutching to the front of his boyfriend's shirt, nearly chalk-white fingers twisting the expensive fabric with incredible cruelty, as he moaned lowly in his throat every time the arms around his waist pulled him closer to the larger, stronger body. Similarly to a hungry leech, he was now clinging to the taller male, a frantic kind of urgency bubbling beneath every movement he made despite the other one's occasional attempts to make him slow down. His fingers opened once he realized they were now standing before the model's bed and he purred into the kiss, maneuvering them until Ichigo was sitting on the edge of the mattress, Toushiro's slender body standing between his knees.<p>

"Such a rush." The carrot-top noticed breathlessly, a little bit of playful teasing accompanying his half-panted words as Hitsugaya finally broke their devastating kiss for a brief pause, not really bothering to pull away or even allow his eyes to flutter open. Their foreheads remained pressed together, mouth against gasping mouth, lips moist, swollen, quivering for more, and through the efforts to collect himself, Toushiro managed to chuckle brokenly at the comment, the strange under-taste of disbelief swirling in that one small, cracking sound. His legs felt weak somehow, unstable, and it wasn't just the lust that was making them that way, there was… there was something else.

"I guess… I guess I'm still expecting you to end this. Back down." The boy whispered and his voice trembled oddly as his eyelids finally lifted to allow the startling turquoise underneath to peer at the dim world around him. Whether it was the lack of light in the room, or the prolonged time of waiting and anticipation, this all seemed petrifyingly unreal. He half expected the world around them to pop like a soap bubble any moment now, the colourful, iridescent surface ripping and evaporating into the nothingness. "I just-… I don't know."

There was something wrong with the way he spoke, a flavor of uncertainty that was incredibly frightening in itself, and he felt his muscles tighten as he pulled back just enough to let his face drop in the crook of the other one's neck. The musky, almost astringent scent that was purely male enveloped him with its startlingly comforting warmth, and he noticed his own breath hitch, hands once again finding the man's shirt. A tight, dull ache rose in his chest and he found himself fighting to chase it away as a thin, wicked voice kept chanting with sweet malice in his head: _insignificant_. Undesired. Unbearable. _Difficult_.

Suddenly, he felt strangely disorientated, lost, incomplete. His hands itched to touch, his skin flushed with the need for a contact, but his mind said _no_. No, you don't deserve this. You don't deserve to be trusted, you don't deserve a decent man by your side, you're just a piece of trash, born somehow on a bed of golden sheets. You can't handle being like everybody else, and so you step over the boundaries as much as you can, laughing in the face of moral, right, good, respectable. You feed off people's hatred, their shock, your own pain, and you exist on nothing but the soil that is everything scandalous and unacceptable.

_You __have __to__ walk __away, __while __you __still __can_.

"I have to go." Toushiro whispered suddenly, the horror of how wanly he had spoken the statement failing to affect him the way it would've done at any other moment, in any other time. _You__ don__'__t __really __want __me._ _You __don__'__t __really __need __me._He loosened his hold on Ichigo's attire and made a move to step back, only to halt dumbly when the pair of hands on his waist tightened their hold on him, prohibiting his body from doing anything.

"Why?" the carrot-top whispered and the sheer confusion in his voice nearly had Toushiro biting his lower lips for a moment. Without so much as a soft sigh, he swallowed thickly his unwillingness to talk and shook his head, the same words blossoming unprettily to the surface before he could make them stop.

"Because this isn't going to work. I'm not like you, Kurosaki. You have no idea… _No __idea_ how different we are." Choking a little on the last sentence, he nearly cursed his own pitifulness out loud, immediately making a move to pull away before he could humiliate himself any further. A half-muffled sound of frustration escaped his chest when his attempt was hindered yet again, and he remained in his spot, feeling more nude and exposed than ever before. His hands flew in front of him with the weak plan to shove against the man's shoulder, but he never really did anything, just letting his palms rest there, as he looked away from the pair of chocolate orbs that were insistently trying to meet his own. _Don__'__t __make__ this __any __harder__… _He heard the taller man sigh softly somewhere near his ear, but in lieu of the shouting, anger or acceptance that Hitsugaya had expected to follow, a tender kiss landed on his temple, making him stiffen in surprise. Then Ichigo's mouth moved lower, trailing down across the teen's jawline, the slender white neck, showering the exposed flesh with care that made Toushiro melt like a stray little snowflake, _against__ his __own __reason_, against his own objections...

"You don't always have to be in control, you know." The carrot-top uttered mildly, his tanned fingers toying with the edge of the shorter one's T-shirt for a moment before beginning to gently, carefully, push it up, baring the smooth flesh underneath with determination that Hitsugaya suddenly didn't know how to oppose. A long, chilling shudder traveled down the teen's spine and his body went completely pliant under the model's touches, the dull ache for affection beginning to throb with more and more power in the core of his chest as he was slowly coaxed out of his clothes and left half-naked and aroused before the carrot-top's eyes. He felt Ichigo chuckle breathlessly against his collarbone, and the warmth of the action made the smaller male flush faintly, a low gasp tearing from his lips as a pair of hands found his ass and squeezed it in a possessive, slightly rough manner that Toushiro hadn't been expecting to see from his chivalrous boyfriend. "You don't always have to remain impartial, objective, strong… Sometimes you need to let someone else take over."(...)

* * *

><p><strong><em>Missing scene is in my LJ account. You can find links in my Author notes and profile page.<em>**

* * *

><p>(...)Hitsugaya was too sleepy to notice.<p>

The only thing that he cared about before he drifted off completely, was the warmth of the man's tan arms as the draped over his naked form.

* * *

><p>The next morning, Ichigo was yanked from the peaceful world of dreams by the tingling, bitter, and very persistent smell of something unpleasant. Wrinkling his nose uncomfortably against the polluted air, he shifting a little in his sleep, as though the movement would somehow make the disturbing factor go away. When it didn't (growing even more tangible and irritating instead). the carrot-top groaned with distress and slowly, unwillingly, forced his heavy eyelids to lift and welcome the new day. A new day that suspiciously smelled like cheap tobacco.<p>

For a few moments he couldn't quite comprehend what was happening, where he was or who he was with, but soon enough iridescent colours permeated the blinding white that had initially surrounded him, and the objects around him began to take shapes. The silhouettes adopted lines, hues, softness, and eventually, _faces_… after that it wasn't very hard to find the source of his morning troubles, as much as he wished he hadn't.

"Smoking already?" Ichigo asked, incredulousness seeping in his voice in the form of a vicious flood as he drew his hand back to rub the slumber off his sticky eyes. No answer came, other than the soft whine of air as the toxic fumes were released in the atmosphere yet again, and so the model paused, realizing a little belatedly that something was off. Without so much as a small frown, he propped himself on his elbows and blinked a few times until he had focused completely on the person before him. "What's wrong?"

Sitting crossed-legged at the lower end of the bed (still very much nude and with a cigarette poised between the index and middle finger on his right hand) there was Toushiro, and he was gazing at his lover with strained, anxious intensity that the carrot-top had never seen before. The white sheets were covering his lap, keeping some approximate decency between them despite the things that had happened the previous night, yet there was an undeniable sort of tension in the boy's stance, some kind of vice anticipation that seemed to be clutching at his muscles with startling power. Hitsugaya's usually beautifully white skin looked almost translucent now, fey at places, and as Ichigo quickly realized (as strange as the thought made him feel), that was probably the way the smaller male's body paled. Even the few purplish splotches along the collarbone and the neck appeared much fainter than what was to be expected, almost as though Toushiro was unconsciously trying to turn invisible. Indiscernible from the dull environment around him…

_What the hell's going on here…?_

As though guessing what was cooking in the taller one's head, Toushiro let his lips purse in a thin, chalky-white line, scowl deepening immensely as he took one last drag from his cigarette and exhaled.

"I had an affair with my history teacher." He stated staidly, watching impartially as the model's eyes widened at the declaration, disbelief pulling at the man's lips in a way that made Ichigo look strangely vulnerable. Hitsugaya didn't even flinch, cocking his head slightly to the side as though curious about the reactions of the subject that was now sitting before him, and when he got no verbal response to his announcement, he merely huffed. For any less observant side viewer it would've appeared as though the boy was just speaking about the weather, reciting a well-rehearsed series of lines about the length of the following day, the humidity, the clouds and the temperature… Ichigo, however, could not be fooled. He saw the way the younger male's fingers slowly, yet steadily curled, fisting the sheets over his thigh until his knuckles had turned completely white, and he saw how the piercing jade eyes never once allowed themselves the luxury to leave the model's face... almost as though if he dared to avert his gaze, something horrible was going to happen. Something irreversible. "The man in the cinema – that was him. He's currently 43 years old, married for 12 years and with two daughters. He was buying a ticket for the younger one that day – she's seven now, just started school." Taking another long drag from the tobacco stick, Toushiro added quickly, his tone still remaining as flat and robotic as ever. "He asked me if I wanted to try again and I said no."

Ichigo sat up completely, a look of sheer shock marring his face as he shook his head, trying to get the newly arrived information to fit properly in all the right places. Hitsugaya was still watching him intently, turquoise orbs a bit narrowed as though he was waiting to be yelled at, but still, the model said nothing. Seeing as the boy wasn't going to utter a single sound before he did, the carrot-top let out a long sigh and lifted his hand, freezing in shock when Toushiro's eyes snapped shut and he cringed, his jaw clenching exponentially as though he was expecting something tremendous to land on his naked, vulnerable body.

And the carrot-top quickly realized what it was.

Feeling his insides run cold, Ichigo carefully reached forward and cradled the smaller face in his hands, waiting with clenched heart until Hitsugaya finally dared to look at him again.

"Did you-… Did you think I was going to hit you?"

No answer came, Hitsugaya just kept looking up at his lover expectantly, tucking his lower lip between his teeth and letting his features relax just a bit until the first true, salient signs of anxiety came to the surface.

"Oh, Toushiro…" the carrot-top whispered almost reprimanding. "Why?"

"Because I deserve it." The boy blurted without a second thought and the taller male tensed.

"What…?" Ichigo managed, shock and hurt making him shake his head with slow, uncertain movements. "How can you-"

"That's what he said. That's what he always said, that I don't deserve any better." Grasping the carrot-top's wrists one after the other, Hitsugaya gently pried them away from his face, teal orbs glued on the sheets in his lap as though they could somehow put the right words in his mouth.

…They couldn't though. Nobody could.

"I think he was right in the end, my dad… I screwed up big time. I screwed up such a big time, Kurosaki, you just have no idea-" pausing to take a long, strained drag from his cigarette, the boy stubbed it out in the ashtray that he had left beside his knee and bit his lower lip deep, hard, in a silent punishment for his misdeeds. "I should probably go, I don't want to cause any more awkwardness. This has gone on for too long."

Pulling the sheets off of himself, Toushiro made a move to stand, only to freeze dead in his track when a hand landed on his arm, keeping him seated.

"No." Ichigo whispered, his free hand lifting to take a gentle hold of the smaller one's chin and turn it towards himself. "No. You're staying. And you're going to tell me the real story. Not the one that you're using to scare me out of your life."

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: One or two more chapters left, then a sequel.**_

**Review!**

**_**__**Link to the missing scene (can also be found in my profile page): **_****queenofcitrus(then you write a dot and 'livejournal') (then a dot) (then 'com/855')(then a dot)(then 'html')****_**  
><strong>__**_**


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: And then the story suddenly told me it wanted flashbacks and I had to obey. So basically I'll stop saying when this story will be over due to the scenes that I keep adding, but not much more is left. Big thanks to Anya for introducing me to the wonderful piece of music below.**_ **Special thanks to the anonymous person who left me a long review for the previous chapter and made my day.** Flashbacks aren't in Italics this time.

* * *

><p>Iridescent<p>

Chapter 4

_Music:_ "_One to One" Giles Lamb_

When the sound of the half-muffled steps of someone walking hurriedly towards them reached Renji's ears, he couldn't help it but grin slyly, already knowing in advance who the designer sneakers probably belonged to. He didn't have to look at his watch to check if Hitsugaya was exactly on time – this happened to be one of the few occasions in which the (soon-to-be-)mayor's son seemed to be a little too impatient to get started – and the fact somehow added up to the red-head's excellent mood as he stretched thoroughly, preparing for what the night was going to offer them. It was already way past midnight, quite the unusual time for three seventeen-year-olds to be wandering the streets of Karakura, but while most students their age preferred to be sleeping right now, Abrai's trio of vagabonds was just getting started on a good list of pranks. There was nothing better than wreaking havoc in a town as small and as boring and as _gossip-ruled_ as this one, and having a wealthy boy genius with daddy issues on your side just seemed to make things better. Plus, despite his numerous and very distinguishable flaws, Toushiro was an interesting guy to be around; he was like one of those spicy, piquant Mexican dishes that people always hesitated whether to order or not – he was too strong for some to swallow, and too fascinating for others to give up had they already dared to have the first bite – and while 90% of the time Renji wished that he could make the Ice Prince hold his tongue instead of blurting all those weird stuff that he had the habit of saying, in the other 10% he found it incredibly amusing how the white-haired genius never seemed to care what was leaving his mouth. Sure, Rukia always happened to be there to spoil the red-head's mood by pointing out that there was nothing entertaining in the way Hitsugaya appeared to be stepping over increasingly outrageous boundaries, but Abarai blamed all of this on that girly empathy shit. If Toushiro thought that there was something wrong with the way he behaved, he would've done something about it years ago, considering his father (who was probably the scariest dude in Karakura) had shown plenty of displeasure with his son in all shapes and forms, some of which Renji had personally seen on the short teen's face…

Standing up from where he had been sitting on his jacket for the past ten minutes or so, Renji turned around to offer Rukia a hand, his mind already working to throw out the last few thoughts. He didn't need to get his mood spoiled over petty worries right now, they were about to have some real fun after what felt like a decade of drab school life. It wasn't fair to feel guilty over this, Abarai mused as the temporarily lost grin finally resurfaced, a man's free will was his damn right no matter how much this could go against generally believed bullshit or not.

"Seems like Mr. Richie Rich is here." The red-headed male muttered with a half-snicker as he pulled the girl to her feet and reached to retrieve his jacket from the ground. "I can smell the Prada perfume from two blocks away."

"I'm not wearing Prada, you moron." Came the familiar biting voice and they both turned around just in time to see Toushiro emerging from around the corner of some old, abandoned building that was due to be pulled down some times soon. The look on the white-haired boy's face was according to the expectations: permanently bitchy, obstinate and hard like delicately etched marble. His eyes, while smooth and easy to misjudge from the wrong corner, carried the deep, dark gleam of someone that was ready to cause trouble and that very specific deviant complexity of the misunderstood child-genius which had always, _always_ partially intimidated Renji. The boy was wearing a simple grey hoodie, unzipped at the front to somewhere around his middle, and a rather loose shirt in matching colour underneath - one that seemed a bit too slack around the collar and a bit too casual (with all the light-blue letters scattered around it) for the taste of some supposedly self-sufficient snob. Apart from the immaculately picked brand names, Hitsugaya seemed in no way dressed to vaunt, his sinfully long legs clad in a pair of quite baggy, yet plain black pants that hung (reasonably) low on the teen's hips and created the impression that he was somewhat less skinny than what reality claimed him to be. Hand running through his tousled snowy locks and left shoulder supporting what looked like a half-empty blue backpack, Toushiro was something between a golden coin and a copper dime: precious, but sort of wrong all over.

"Brought the paint?"

"Yeah." Toushiro replied dryly, reaching inside his trousers' pocket to pull out a packet of cigarettes and a steel lighter. "Someone's gotta do something, right?"

"Smoking again?" Rukia spoke up, the disapproving tone in her voice only making Hitsugaya's mouth curl oddly at the side as he pushed a poisonous stick between his lips and conveniently refused to spare the girl a glance.

"I never really stopped, you know."

"But you used to smoke _less_."

"Leave him, Rukia." Renji interfered pacifyingly, adopting a self-important expression even as his mouth twitched to turn into a wide smirk. "Don't you see that our queer prodigy is trying to appear manlier in this way?"

"Fuck you, Abarai." Hitsugaya shot back calmly, withdrawing the flame of the lighter from the tip of his cigarette and inhaling deeply the toxic fumes before giving the other male an empty look. "You should really stop bringing that shit up or I might think you're gay, too."

And that would be quite a ridiculous assumption, as they both knew, seeing as Renji had been crushing on the dark-haired girl beside him for as long as he could remember.

* * *

><p>Hitsugaya actually did chuckle when Rukia suggested that it was the stress that was getting to him – the laughter was a little hollow and very much stripped off every sign of amusement, but it was the best he could do at the moment. Plus, it was funny how correct such barefaced suppositions always turned out to be in the end – it kindda made the whole idea of life and the presumably unique nature of each person fade into a whirlpool of grey and muddy hues rather than the iridescent colours that every poem, short story, play or novel insisted on stuffing in the hopeful and eager heads of the society. At the end of the day, it was the glutinous matter of uniformity that held the universe together, and it would be the same arid lack of discrepancy between the separate individuals that would someday bring the world down.<p>

Releasing a long, bluish trickle of smoke, Toushiro turned around to rivet hooded, bored eyes on the tall chain-link fence that was surrounding the chubby warehouse that they were now going to target. The edifice was old and quite unpleasant-looking: an astounding combination of chipped walls, black, mould-dabbed corners and crumbling roof edges… If _anything_, their trio was going to make the place more appealing rather than the other way around, no matter what the law had to say about the little graffiti stunts that their small group was so fond of performing every once in a while. Hitsugaya was quite aware that unlike him Renji found some strange excitement in this mild form of vandalism… it was a bit pathetic, really, and the white-haired boy had pointed that out on a number of occasions with an utmost earnestness in his tone… and yet for some reason the more he repeated his opinion on the topic, the less seriously the taller male seemed to take those words of undeniable wisdom. Sure, Toushiro agreed, sometimes it was really fun to break the rules and get away with it unharmed and unsuspected, but being a rebel and going against everything commonly acceptable just for the sake of proving yourself in front of _your own_ unimportant eyes wasn't the reason why Hitsugaya was ready to surmount whatever obstacles in order to perform his very own and twisted form of art… _No_. Not at all actually, and precisely _because_ he was absolutely certain that his friends wouldn't understand him, he neither wanted to discuss his motives and purposes with them, nor wished to drag the two into his foolish little escapades. Renji and Rukia – they were the type of people who'd revel in doing shit under the noses of authorities, sticking their feet to trip up the very people that were meant to lead them and gathering the greatest satisfaction in the fact that they would never to bear any consequences. Hitsugaya on the other hand?

He _wanted_ to get caught.

_So_, Toushiro mused a tad bit more lightly, wrapping his left arm around his middle and propping his right elbow on top of it so he could properly hold his cigarette near his mouth, _so_ destroying public property for the simplest aim to withdraw some sort of a sick pleasure from the fact that you were supposedly standing up against society…? How could that not be pitiful? Especially if you were going after the half-abandoned failures of some architectural genius and pretending that you had achieved a new criminal high of a sort or a presumably unattainable level of badassness by trespassing on deserted and unguarded territory. You could stick gum under park benches, stop in the parking spots of disabled people or scramble your name on the seat of the guy that sat before you in the bus, and the feeling would be pretty much the same. Everything else, from the idea of the valiant adventure of jumping fences, to the sneaking around at night while playing a ninja-themed melody in your head – were simple illusions. Playground games that the big kids never outgrew.

Toushiro took a deep drag from his cigarette and decided to appoint himself as the head of the operation.

"Off you go over the fence and on the other side, Renji. Someone will need to help the lady down." Hitsugaya stated plainly, already approaching the holey hindrance with a thoughtful look on his face and plenty of smoke swirling from between his slightly parted lips. Tall, but not _that_ tall, he noticed. They had managed through worse.

"I was going to help you out even without the kind request, you know." The red-head murmured sarcastically as he came up to stand next to the shorter student with long muscular arms folded neatly over his chest. Toushiro turned his head to the person beside him and lifted his right ankle to cross it over the left one casually, the edge of his mouth twisting to the side as he skillfully produced two of those clicking sound that riders usually used to prompt their horses to move. The glare that Renji gave him was more than just a little entertaining…

Five minutes later and basically no more talking, Abarai, Rukia and the blue backpack were waiting patiently on the other side of the fence and Toushiro was swiftly climbing the obstacle himself. A lot of experience with similar situations had taught the white-haired boy how to jump without breaking his neck and he barely hesitated once he got on top of the metal wall. The only thing that made him pause with his fingers wrapped uncomfortably tight around the thin loops was the shit-eating grin that had spread across his red-headed comrade's face, hinting quite unambiguously that the taller student was going to try and pull up some kind of an idiotic joke on Hitsugaya in very near future… Throwing his friend one last menacing glower, Toushiro easily maneuvered his body so that he would not get his clothes caught in anything, and leaped off the fence.

_Thud!_

"Gotcha, princess!" Renji snickered knowingly as he gazed down proudly at the diminutive teenager that he had managed to snatch in his arms. The look of surprise flitted across Toushiro's face faster than the human eye could possibly follow, and then anger took over, deep, and hard, and seething, bubbling with the humongous power of a thousand thunder-clouds in this otherwise quite skinny form. Without wasting a single second to think over the morality of this all, the shorter boy narrowed his eyes and lifted his hand dramatically, swiftly slapping his friend across the face with all his might.

The effect was instant.

No carrying in the slightest about the undignified picture that he was portraying, Renji let out a pained gasp and promptly let go off his animated luggage, successfully dropping Hitsugaya on the ground in favor of clasping his palm over the injured cheek and rubbing the abused spot with the expression of a soldier that had just received a lethal wound. "Shit! What the hell was that for?"

"What the hell was _that_ for? You just fuckin' dropped me, you dense Neanderthal, what's wrong with you?" Toushiro spat out in bristly retaliation before slowly sitting up on the ground and reaching grimly to massage the small of his back where his tailbone had collided with the rough earth surface. "I could very well jump and land on my own! And _don't_-" the boy warned lowly, his tenth clenched together. "for the love of God, crack another gay joke, or I swear to all deity out there, I'll slap you until you die!"

Obviously taking the threat to heart, Renji swiftly clamped his mouth shut and lifted his hands up before himself in silent surrender, still watching sullenly as Hitsugaya rose to his feet with a groan and stretched a little, the soft chuckling sound that came from Rukia's direction obviously not affecting either of them. The girl was standing with something like a condescending look on her face a couple of meters away, one hand over her mouth and the other already holding a can of spray, and she appeared to be having tons of fun at the expense of the two males. Toushiro shot her a meaningful glance, before starting to make his way towards her, only to stop dead in his track when he heard a low murmur from behind his back.

"_Damn_. Princess is scary."

Right. This was a good moment to prove that he definitely lived up to fulfill his promises.

* * *

><p>Toushiro was halfway through what he was drawing, when he heard the sirens. In all honesty, he hadn't been expecting anything like that today – in fact, he had been prepared for quite a calm, uninteresting night with his two friends - so when the sound reached his ears and he felt Rukia tense beside him, he couldn't help it but fall strangely still for a few long moments. His first instinct resembled a shot of adrenalin through his whole body, a spike of heat that ignited his skin and urged him to run while he could, but the sensation of incinerating incandescence glazed over with a thin lamella of ice almost instantly. A morbid sort of a rumble shuffled inside his chest, the suede, slightly masochistic toxin that was his self-destructive nature stirring his slush-like blood and draining his desire to hide similarly to a greedy mouth that had latched its teeth into his flesh and was now drinking his liveliness in large, powerful gulps. His fingers clamped around the spray can and he allowed himself to smirk crookedly, the dull ache of a man that craved to be shot down gripping at his insides, both suffocating and invigorating his cold, ivory body. The distant noise from approaching footsteps and the rays of torches captured his attention and he pressed his lips together when Rukia grasped his forearm, hissing urgently in his ear that they needed to run.<p>

"You go." He muttered a little distractedly, throwing the other two a certain look over his shoulder. "I'll handle this."

"What the fuck in wrong with you?" Renji ground out, pushing the girl aside to take a rather tight hold of the smaller guy's shoulder. "We're not leaving you here!"

Hitsugaya just chuckled at the audacious statement and moved to push the man's hand off of himself with the tips of his fingers.

"Do you really think that you can drag me over that fence against my will?" the boy enunciated slowly, letting the full meaning of his words sink into that thick skull. "You don't have much time, Abarai. Get going."

"Hitsugaya-kun-" Rukia began but he shook his head hastily, gesturing eloquently to the direction from which the steps were coming. The question was clear in the way he was looking at his mates now, a salient enquiry, spiced up with that lurid sort of anticipation that could both fascinate and frighten any side-viewer:

_I'm staying. Are you ready to risk getting caught because of me?_

…The answer was _no_.

And that was _exactly_ how Toushiro wanted it to be.

...After that everything felt like slices of some intrepid dream: the flash of light in his eyes, the confusion and hesitation on the police officers' faces when they recognized who he was, the wavering hands on his shoulder, the decadent illumination of the slumbering streets as they drove him off to the station. He remembered the strange, giddy sort of content that had settled in the pith of his chest, the odd and racy thrill that such situations always brought him, the exhaustion that came like a tide of cool sea water over a battered body, and finally the deep, gnawing ache that seemed to grow to a scalding hot in the place where his heart was meant to be. Half an hour (Or maybe more. Or maybe less.) later he found himself seated on a chair in a small room, left there with no handcuffs, no guards, no company of any sort… just him sitting in front of a meager plastic table with his head blank and his digits splayed limply in his lap. The tantalizing need to move came seconds later, scratching at his sore arms and prompting them to move with the insistent stubbornness of a child who repudiated every attempt for a reasonable conversation. _Fuc_k reason. Fuck _moral_. Who the hell said that he was wrong, or that he was right, who made up all that shit? He was his own damn God. His own damn owner. Why was it so that he had to depend on a whole bunch of people without even receiving anything from them, in any way, shape or form?

His fingers curled in a claw-like manner against his thighs and he found himself in an urgent, nearly unbearable need for a smoke. He was sure that other than the fact that he looked the tiniest bit restless on the outside, there was nothing that gave away even a remote hint on what was going on in his inner world. Nothing depicted in even the vaguest of limits how wound-up, how _strained_, similarly to a thick machine belt, his stomach and chest had become. The relief that the bitter nicotine poison promised was almost literally tickling the inside of his pocket now, inviting him for a ride that was neither too impetuous, nor very jazzy, but which would surely untie the knot in his chest with more success than any other means that he could possibly resort to. Before he could even realize what he was doing, the boy had pulled out the packet of cigarettes from the confines of his clothes and tucked one between his lips, igniting the end a bit too urgently for it to seem normal, a severe frown already knitting his brows together as though he was consuming some expensive medicine with irrelevant bitterness instead of tons of fleeting venom. He blew out a thick cloud of smoke a mere trice after sucking it in, and then sighed in relief, slumping in his chair lazily even as his eyes remained stuck on the 'no smoking!' sign that hung next to the door. If this little militant folly of his activated the fire system, all the better, he decided with a derisive twist of his features. A police-themed pool party. What other reason would there be for prohibiting a healthy habit such as smoking in the confines of a so depressing building?

It was only when Toushiro finished his second cigarette that the door opened and the officer who had arrested him an hour or so ago walked in, followed by a slim man of average height with a rigorous face, thin lips and light brown, almost blondish hair. The boy's eyes instantly landed on the new-comer, starling teal orbs meeting a pair of ones in a matching (if a little duller) colour and the teen allowed a tight smile to dissipate across his face. The guy towered over him with a good a foot and a half (not that it was that big of an achievement considering the teen's unimpressive stature) but it wasn't the physical differences the seemed to split a mile of gap between them – rather, it was some kind of an ineradicable, ancient and so incredibly putrid lack of appreciation and respect that seemed to spread deeper and more nocuous the longer those two people remained in the same room.

"Hey, _daddy_." Hitsugaya cooed sweetly, reaching to stub out his cigarette on the table beside him, right next to the fag he had put out about ten minutes ago on the very end of the plastic furniture. No answer came, the usual amount of antipathy between the representatives of the two consecutive generations now seeming like the most natural thing in the world. This was the beautiful prelude of an inconceivable tragedy: unspeakable masses of spite, malice in loads, muteness that _drilled _similarly to the tip of a blade that pierced friable soil... _And why would anyone want anything to change? _An oblique and elusive look was all Toushiro deigned to give his parent, stormy blue-and-green eyes now glued on his own hand as he surveyed the way the ash from his tobacco stick was now grinding against the smooth artificial surface beneath it. He didn't expect any greeting from his father – not really – but the insipid lack of recognition stung him nonetheless, the way it always did, deep _inside_, _beyond_ and _under_ his walls, and he let out a small laugh-like sound, more than anything because he was even less than unhappy. Clad in an immaculately picked suit, well-kempt and dressed smartly even at this hour, Hitsugaya Masashi made his way towards his son with a calm, self-controlled gait and without saying a single word, grabbed the back of Toushiro's collar and roughly pulled the boy to his feet.

"Sometimes I do wonder how you ended up being mine." The politician pondered briefly, not caring in the slightest about the presence of the officer (the very same one that he was probably going to stuff the pockets of minutes from now) in the room. "You're like a badly-trained half-breed dog. Neither very useful, nor too attractive… The moment I turn around, you launch into destroying every bit of decency that I have built up and it's not like I receive anything in return for trying to make amends…" The man paused momentarily before adding with a sordid kind of tone. "Of course, someone _had_ to pick the short stick, isn't that so? Everybody needs a pebble in their shoe, just to stir things a little every once in awhile."

Toushiro arched an irritated brow, his lips curling in a similar tight line to the one his dad was now wearing.

"If you're asking me, _I _picked the short stick by ending up with you as my father." He muttered evenly, his temples beginning to throb in painful ache over the anger that was trying to burst free from his skin, muscles, bones, blood vessels. "You don't fucking _get_ a dog if you don't have the backyard for it."

Allowing the side of his mouth to twist with a very odd kind of amusement, the man leaned in and whispered in his distinctively slick, algid sort of tone right in his child's ear:

"Don't make me drag you to the car, kid, spare yourself the humiliation and go by yourself while I clean up your mess."

Ignorance – courtesy of all that are powerful. Anger. Attentiveness. Impatience. The qualities of those that are far more miserable than what they would ever be able to admit to themselves.

Letting out a small and rather savage growl, Toushiro made a move to try and yank himself free from the odious grasp, but the effort proved to be thrown in vain. His father wasn't ready to release and dismiss him just yet and judging by the vaguely sadistic sheen in the depths of the man's eyes - so incompatible with the otherwise sickeningly smooth and pleasant attitude - the young Hitsugaya wasn't going to enjoy what was about to follow.

"Oh, right." Masashi added tartly, the saliently _fake_ thoughtful expression on his face making the boy's own features crumple with barely contained frustration. "And seeing as you made me leave my house at such an hour to pull you out of the troubles you insist on involving yourself into, some gratitude could be appreciated. Even a brat like yourself should know how to retrieve a cappuccino from the coffee machine in the corridor, so why don't you hurry and get that done on your way to the limo?"

"Get your own fuckin' coffee." The boy bit back, turning his head up to look directly up at his father with excruciatingly darkened eyes narrowed with contempt and lips twisted in the most distasteful grimace he could muster without looking hideous. "I never asked you to clean up my messes."

"But that's the point of all this, isn't it?" Masashi stated calmly as he straightened his back and arched a single brow. "Causing trouble. Like the bunch of pictures that I had to keep from getting into the press the other week. There's _always_ something-"

"You're just '_always'_ making a big deal out of these things! No one would care if I went to a bar, for God's sake, even if I'm seventeen, do you _really_ believe this would affect your-"

The man's hand had grasped the back of Toushiro's head in a heart-beat, pulling back on the snowy strands with harshness that had the teen releasing a small pained sound as he was forced to look up at the completely unimpressed expression of his father.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to interrupt me when I'm talking?" he asked smoothly, tugging a bit more brutally on his son's hair for emphasize. "You know well enough how this appears in people's eyes. How can I be a trusted politician if I can't control my own impertinent offspring?"

"If I didn't interrupt, you'd never fucking notice me talking!" Hitsugaya hissed, his features twisted slightly in response to what his scalp was forced to endure. Above him, towering quite astoundingly over him, his dad just smirked unpleasantly.

"Language, Toushiro." He said smoothly. "Apologize."

"I'm not going to- _Gah!_" he winced when the pain in his head grew exponentially, long pale fingers twisting his snowy strands with cruelty that was beginning to feel unbearable.

"Apologize." Masashi ordered flatly, not even missing a beat. "Don't make this any harder on yourself."

"Well, _sorry_." Toushiro spat out sarcastically, not even bothering to try to sound honest as he made an attempt to wring free from the grip, only to wince and grow still again. The inimical growl of a wounded young wolf stung at the inside of his cheeks, but he forced it down, defiance and indelible discontent covering his eyes like an invisible foil that refused to let anything from the outside crawl in. He knew what was going to follow and he was aware that he was going to cave, just to get it over and done with, but it didn't make him feel any less sick that this would end up being yet another crumb, another sand speck in the hourglass that was his patience...

"Sorry what?" Masashi prompted easily. The boy let out an angry breath whoosh between his teeth as his fingers curled into fists by his sides.

"Sorry, _sir_."

"Better." The politician said before releasing his son and pushing him towards the door. "Off you go. Matsumoto's waiting for you in the car."

Clenching his jaw, Hitsugaya stiffly made his way down the now familiar corridors and out of the station, his arms wrapped tightly around his body as if the conversation from a couple of minutes ago had frozen his insides into large blocks of ice. When he got into the jet-black limo that was waiting for him in front of the building, he almost couldn't believe how disgusting the soft, luxurious upholster felt against his clothed skin. He slid in the far corner of the seat and curled there, moving to stare out of the window with such an obstinacy that he hardly noticed the barrier between the back of the car and the driver's place lower to reveal a familiar pair of curious pale blue eyes.

"Are you okay?"

Toushiro glanced up at the driver – his only friend out of all of his family's servants – but didn't bother to pretend that he was fine, swiping his gaze just once over the new uniform that Matsumoto had been ordered to wear (slick black-and silver suit and a small flat cap in matching colours), before shifting to contemplate the view outside again.

* * *

><p>Hitsugaya wasn't surprised in the slightest when he gained consciousness and found himself in his bed, fully clothed and with the shoes still on, his mouth feeling both sticky and parched as the remains of the previous night (or rather, morning) stirred inside his belly similarly to an angry swarm of insects. The familiar holey sensation had settled loyally in the pit of his stomach and, like every other time, it made him both hungry and in absolutely no mood for eating. It didn't, however, occur to him that he could have a headache, until he lifted his head off the middle of the mattress (where he had obviously spent the night in a sprawled position, no blankets, no pillows, nothing to make his sleep more comfortable than the mere collapse on a non-rough surface) and relinquished to an explosion of throbbing pain that spread across his whole skull, temples and eyes and gripped those places in its unrelenting clutches. His ears were ringing a little – a farewell present from the RnB disco that he had assaulted a few hours ago – and his body felt sore, probably tasting the aftershocks of too much hopping and god knew what else on the dance floor.<p>

Slinking off the bed begrudgingly, Toushiro only managed to stand straight for about half a minute before sinking tiredly to the floor, his back propped against the lower leg of the comfortable piece of furniture as he pressed his fingertips to the beginning of his brows and applied well-measured pressure. How much time he spent in this position: motionless and unwilling to move – he didn't know… but at last the sharp, piercing ring of his mobile phone cut through the air and straight to his tortured brain and he cringed, reaching blindly inside his clothes to retrieve the cruel devise. He didn't even glance at the screen to check who was bothering him at such a time, pushing the green answer button instead and pressing the gadget to his ear.

"What?" he groused lowly, blinking a couple of times till he could focus properly on his room. His eyes met dull, bare walls, elegant and modern in their silvery gray but incredibly depressing for a teenager of his age, character and interests. A couple of resilient potted plants were thriving on random surfaces all around the place – one of them standing proudly on the boy's desk, right next to a snoozing laptop, and the other one trying to catch at least a single ray of light through the thick velvet curtains that swayed gently, yet strangely glumly over the French windows. An exuberantly large wardrobe was staring right at its owner's sullen face from across the room, doors hanging open as random shoes and clothing spilled from the threateningly gaping throat like rotten teeth out of an ill mouth, while a quaintly shaped bluish chandelier hung from the ceiling, currently somnolently dark and still, resembling a black space hole that was sucking in every stray photon of illumination to feed on its miniscule warmth. _God_… Toushiro thought with distaste as he let his body slump even more against the bed, no wonder he hardly stood spending more than a few hours in this place. If he had to put a definition to it, he'd go for 'luxurious coffin'.

"_Yo, dude! Where are you?_" Renji's voice, a little too persistent and a little too loud, came from the phone's direction, successfully ripping Hitsugaya from his momentary reverie. Toushiro gritted his teeth and screwed his eyes shut, taking a trice to decipher the question in his head...

"Do you require specific coordinates?" he muttered finally, surprised when even his own voice made him cringe. Ugh. Hangover.

"_You haven't left the house yet, have you?_"

"You don't say? And there I was thinking: where has the freakshow parade disappeared? ...And by 'freakshow parade' I meant the school if you didn't get it."

"_Drag your ass here, we're having a history test._"

"Yeah? You mean on history, right?"

"_You don't want to make a bad impression on the new teacher_."

"…Seriously, Renji?"

"_Rukia made me say that_."

"Tell Rukia that I would've laughed at such a silly notion if I didn't fear head explosion."

"_Ah. You're hung over._"

"And Captain Obvious strikes again!"

"_It astounds me how bitchy you can get even when only half of your mind is working_."

"I killed a basket of kittens for breakfast."

"_I thought you liked cats?_"

"It could've been pups. I don't know. Everything was covered in blood."

At that point Rukia obviously decided she had had enough and tore the mobile phone from Renji's unreliable hold, starting a yelling match with Toushiro about how he was late and needed to get to school asap, how he couldn't keep skipping when it pleased him, then something about him having too many absences that were going to get him some kind of a stupid punishment – such as a month of detention – and if he wanted to have any free time on his hands, he was going to start thinking with his head and get out of bed... Hitsugaya insisted that he was no longer in bed and that she was being hysterical for no reason _again_ and that he had no obligation to listen to her scream her head off in the speaker. Then she claimed that he was an idiot and he countered with the mean statement that she only knew how to draw bunnies. After that there was a short angry pause, till Toushiro eventually decided that the silent treatment was a very dumb thing to do on the phone and promised he'd be there right away, so she could just go back to molesting Renji while he wasn't there. Hitsugaya hung up halfway through the girl's protest, getting up and dragging himself to the full-length mirror beside his desk to take a very non-critical look at his reflection, his eyes swiping over his clothing languidly, more out of lack of desire to get going than actual intention to change. He was wearing dark, almost black jeans with nothing but a couple of metal studs along the front pockets, the high-quality fabric hugging his ass tightly enough to emphasizing on his rather impressively long and slender legs without making him look vulgar. His shirt was a mix of black with several randomly drawn strings of white across it, the collar once again rather loose around his neck, hence baring the tiniest bit more skin than what was commonly acceptable, which in combination with the disheveled hair, the mirthlessly droopy eyes and the lack of any smile whatsoever, made him look a bit like a criminal that had been unleashed mere hours ago from prison.

Toushiro clicked his tongue and glanced down at his watch. He didn't really have time to change in the school uniform, and even if he did – he didn't feel like it. If they made him go back home because he wasn't dressed properly, then all the better, because he didn't want to be in that obnoxious place anyways.

Grabbing his sunglasses from the bedside table, Hitsugaya put them on theatrically and slinked out of the room and down the staircase without hurry.

* * *

><p>Toushiro didn't bother to knock before pressing down on the handle of the door, pushing it open with a bit more gusto and dramatism than what was probably necessary. The classes had started about fifteen minutes ago, so not only had he treaded through a completely deserted corridor till he got here but had now stumbled upon a room where silence, concentration and voiceless agony were about the most powerful rulers of all that was alive and breathing. Every head, of every student that had been focusing on their test just a moment ago, lifted up to look in his direction when he entered, but he failed to feel embarrassed, already too used to situations like this one to place such a great importance on the circumstances of his arrival.<p>

Shifting his gaze to the front of the room, Toushiro found himself staring at the slightly frustrated, yet completely stony expression of some unfamiliar man who had apparently stood up along with the boy's (incredibly noisy) entry, and was now waiting expectantly – what for, the boy had no idea - with his palms resting on the surface of the desk in front of him. Hitsugaya tilted his head slightly to the side and took a minute to scrutinize the person before him, momentarily taken aback by how good-looking the guy really was for his age and occupation. Whether because he had never paid much attention to his teachers in general, or because the population of people working in the education usually consisted of grumpy, edgy and dry men and women with no flare for esthetics whatsoever, the short teen found himself pleasantly surprised by what he was seeing, even with his raging headache now partially messing with the accuracy of his eyesight.

Oh, wait… Maybe that was the sunglasses?

Wrinkling his nose in preparation for the blast of light that was going to assault him, he slowly pulled said sunglasses off his nose, blinking a couple of times against the bright illumination that clashed with his dilated pupils. The purely physical stress hit his wasted nerves harder than he had expected and he growled quietly, fighting honorably (if uselessly) the throbbing pain that splashed with doubled force across his forehead and temples.

"Hi." He stated plainly at last, his struggles to adjust still quite obvious for the rest of the class as he pressed the heel of his palm to his left brow for a trice before looking up again with soft and unwilling eyes. "Dammit! I never noticed how bright this place is… Everybody in favor of diming the lights to a nice romantic atmosphere, please raise your hands."

A couple of people made a move to do just that, but the way the teacher cleared his throat with unneeded loudness at that very moment convinced them to go back to their tests without a word. Turning around quite begrudgingly, Toushiro arched an unimpressed brow, the pair of sunglasses now hanging forgotten by his hip as he waited to hear what the man had to say.

"As far as I remember, it's generally accepted that people _apologize_ when they are late." The teacher stated flatly as he straightened his back, showing fully just how tall he really was. The newly arrived student remained completely still for a moment, not even a particle of regret managing to resurface on his smooth pale features.

"You must be new here." Toushiro stated sarcastically, his eyes drifting to the pile of spare tests on the desk with a look that seemed a modicum too condescending for it to be tolerable. "Such a useless technique. Trying to startle your students with your supposed strictness by giving them a test on your first day… I've found out that it's usually the most soft-hearted representatives of your profession that resort to this strategy."

"You're not wearing your uniform."

"I already knew that." Hitsugaya noticed, switching his weight to his left foot as he lifted his hand with the sunglasses and bit down on the end of one of the temple arm absently. "Did you honestly believe you were making such a great observation by pointing that out?"

The man's mouth twisted oddly at that comment, an almost bored kind of amusement tugging on his lips as he made his way to the younger male and stood before the kid, meeting the daring, albeit tired gaze of those jade eyes with his much more mature and mellow one.

"No textbooks?"

"My pet turtle ate them. She's a sneaky little something, you know? Fast as lightening and so quiet, you can't suspect a thing until it's too late." He paused for one short thoughtful second before pointing his index finger at the older man approvingly. "Extra points for the quick and useful inspection, sensei."

"Why did you even bother to come to school?"

"I don't know. It's an inexplicable, almost magical attraction that I feel towards the building. Impossible to resist, unfortunately, so I couldn't help it."

The man seemed on the verge of chuckling, but the small, amused glint that had flashed silkily behind his dark eyes was gone almost as soon as it had appeared and he shook his head before reaching to snatch the notorious sunglasses from the brat's hand. Hitsugaya glared mildly at the invasion of his precious privacy but didn't do much more to protest, wrapping his thin arms around his waist instead and cocking his head to the side expectantly. Before him the teacher simply folded the glasses and tucked them in the front pocket of his shirt, looking strangely pleased with himself all of a sudden.

"Grab a test and I'll see you in detention after the classes." He said lowly and Toushiro scoffed, already making his way past the man of and towards the pile of paper to pull a sheet from the top.

"Yeah, that was one unexpected twist of events"

The teacher waited till the boy was seated at the back of the room with the test lying in front of him neatly before adding: "For the whole week."

Hitsugaya just smirked wearily, already circling the correct answer for the fourth question. He handed in his test before everybody else, giving the teacher a slightly haughty smile before going back to his place and sleeping through the rest of the class with the certainty of somebody who knew they had given all the right answers.

* * *

><p>"Ah." Toushiro muttered vaguely as he strode into the empty classroom at the end of that day, the grumpy, disinterested expression still haunting his features as he looked around the place before letting his gaze land on the man behind the teacher's desk. "Not only am I the only student with detention today, but I get to do it with you, too."<p>

The new teacher showed absolutely no signs of having been bothered by the mild insult, his eyes swiping up and down the shorter form with the faintest hint of curiosity.

"I'm surprised they didn't send you home with those clothes."

"I get away with a lot of things, Mr…"

"Sakai." The man supplied, his long, slender fingers setting off in a rhythm of soft, monotone thrumming on top of the furniture in front of him. "And you must be Toushiro, right?"

"Hitsugaya." the teen corrected hollowly before slowly making his way towards the desk that stood right in front of the teacher's one. "Unnecessary informality bugs me."

"Really now?" the teacher asked lowly, his eyes – which were following a bit too insistently the student's movements – now drilling with startling firmness in the back of the younger male's neck, almost as though he was expecting Toushiro's slick façade to crack formidably under the incisive gaze. Without even sparing the man a glance, Hitsugaya seated himself a bit sideways in his place of choice and rested one thin forearm on the surface before him. "Do your parents know you're going to be late?"

"They don't care." Hitsugaya replied without even skipping a beat, indolent, choked and lusterless jade flickering oddly at that notion even as his body and face remained in the same relaxed position. "I told my driver. That's enough."

With that said and done, Toushiro decided that their conversation had lasted plenty of time and slumped forward over the desk, eyes slipping shut as he prepared to drift off to the dreamland till the detention ended. Slumber. Pretty much the only sensible utilizing of this wasted time and also one of the most successful ways to gain back and neck pain. He'd have to swallow a whole bunch of aspirins when he got back home…

The faint shuffling of something in the desk's general direction reached his senses and his previously relaxed brows furrowed with tension and displeasure again, all in spite of his sincere attempts to ignore what was going on around him. The tap of approaching steps, then a small shifting in the air nearby, before the distinctive sound of paper being slapped on a hard surface assaulted his hearing and Toushiro tensed. Opening his eyes reluctantly, the boy sat up in his chair, his gaze now glued on the piece of paper before him with no interest or fascination whatsoever.

"What is this?" he muttered resentfully, lifting his hand to trace his fingertips along the edge of the sheet. "I thought I did my test."

"Yes, you did." Sakai nodded, taking a couple of steps backwards till he was leaning back against his desk with his arms folded in front of his chest and his dark orbs riveted with surprising intensity on the student in front of him. "In seven minutes. No mistakes, no hesitation, just clean work. I want to see what else you know."

"Why would I want to take another test?" Hitsugaya enquired rather bitterly, squaring his shouldersk to look at the man with a modicum of unnecessary belligerence. The man just smiled mollifyingly before gesturing at the piece of paper again.

"This is not a test. I want us to discuss these topics so I can gauge your creative thinking in terms of your knowledge. If all is well, I'll let you go off early."

"You'll let me go early?" the boy repeated, gaze averting to the side as he allowed the idea to roll around in his head for awhile. A trice later his lips curled into a brazen little smirk and he jerked his shoulders up in a causal shrug. "Well, then… Let's get started."

* * *

><p>"Excuse me… Coming through… This is <em>my<em> house, how about you let me reach the door, people?" letting out a peevish snarl, Toushiro elbowed his way through the masses of students that were cramming the corridor, drilling his own path between his classmates (and way too many other faces that he hadn't seen before) with the expertise of somebody who knew what he was doing. It was quite a talent, really, to be able to dodge thoughtlessly flailing arms and inconveniently positioned feet (especially if you had the stature of thirteen-year-old kid), but Hitsugaya had gone through the same sweaty, smelly, _ghastly_ scenario plenty of times to be certain that he could survive the ordeal. A step here, an agility-requiring maneuver there, evade those uncoordinated limbs… and _ta-da_! He had made it.

Squeezing through the last wall of closely pressed bodies, Toushiro stumbled into a miraculously opened area and finally managed to take a much necessary breath in. He was standing before the front door, mildly disheveled and rather discontented, but he was alive and well and that was the most important thing. Someone had been hitting the bell quite persistently for the past ten minutes or so and he had a fairy good idea as to who this could be, the presumption somehow failing to worry him the way it probably would've, had Hitsugaya been one of those nervous party-holders that spent their 'fun' nights jumping over every unexpected sound. Stealing a moment to fix his clothes and run his fingers through his hair, the teen cleared his throat, put on an affable face, and without much hesitation yanked the door open.

"How can I help you, officers?" the boy asked sweetly, the most amiable of smiles playing on his lips as he leaned on his left shoulder against the door-frame, looking up at the pair of men with a well-mustered innocent expression. The two policemen – both way over their thirties – shared a stern glance over the teen's head before simultaneously turning back to the white-haired student, the implacable, hard-boiled looks on their faces not softening in the slightest despite the short lad's efforts.

"We received noise complaints from your neighbors, Mr. Hitsugaya… _again_." The taller of the two pointed out in one of the best deadpans that Toushiro had ever heard. Twisting his eyes up in a feigned attempt to mull over such a ridiculous possibility, the boy made sure to swing the door so that it barely left any chance for the policemen to take a peek inside the house before slipping his gaze back to the adults in front of him. Somewhere behind his back the rather formidable scream of someone possibly being covered in beer (or god knew what else) rang around the place, summoning nothing but an ignorant little sparkle in the student's teal orbs.

"It's just a small friends gathering, I'm sure my neighbors are just exaggerating." The teen enunciated smoothly, biting the side of his mouth as he drew his palm down the edge of the door in a manner that was undoubtedly devoid of any possible amount of naïve purity. "It's really unfair that noxious elderly people insist on wasting the time of important men such as yourself with petty affairs like a modest school celebration…" he trailed off, waiting for the much anticipated effect of his sugar-coated voice on the two officers. When they showed nothing but complete tedium with the boy's efforts, Hitsugaya let the fake expression drip off his face, replaced rather impressively by one of hostile irritation before he tipped his head back and yelled over his shoulder as loud as he could. "Matsumoto!"

Less than ten seconds later his driver, now clad in an exceptionally sinful red top and dark skinny jeans popped beside him, a debauched little smile already tugging on her plump, pouty lips.

"Straight?" she asked lowly into his ear and when he nodded his head morosely, she just giggled pepperily before pulling him back and taking his place at the doorstep. "Leave it to me, captain. I can handle these lovely men."

Chuckling under his breath, Toushiro spun on his heel and started making his way back through the crowds, swapping the occasional impudent hand off of his behind and shoving grinning, lecherous, vodka-reeking faces away from his own one with the professional efficiency of a person who did this a lot. He passed through the main hall – a vast space with scarcity of furniture that was currently occupied by dozens of dancing and writhing bodies – and after a short search through the dimmed lights that his guests had preferred to reduce the house's illumination to, he found the table of drinks and headed straight towards it. No one attempted to grope him this time – most people around the room either too drunk to notice him or already attached to somebody else – and he reached his destination successfully, plucking a nearly full bottle of rum from the pile of other drinks, a plastic cup and a carton of orange juice, before turning around and slinking through one of the back doors, then the kitchen and right outside in open, where he could finally take a deep, refreshing gulp of air. Letting his shoulders slump with the relief of finally being away from the party, Hitsugaya stood at the threshold to his deserted, night-embraced backyard for a few long seconds before sitting down comfortably on the front steps beside his very own arrangement of colourful liquids and pulling his knees to his chest. _Damn, why does it have to be so… crammed and noisy… _Shaking his head as though to chase away the thought, Hitsugaya picked up his plastic cup and filled it about halfway up with alcohol, finishing the beverage with a good amount of citrus juice that would make the process of consummation much more fluent. He had already had plenty of such cocktails during the past hour or so, but he still couldn't feel the much coveted effect of dizziness that he was aiming for. For such a small guy – light and skinny, and fine, _short_ – he could hold his liquor surprisingly well… maybe too well, in fact... And after the last week of shocks, confusion and plenty of diffidence, what he wanted was solely to wipe out all obtrusive thoughts from his head and leave it delightfully blank, serene like a stormless sky and ready to absorb whatever the world threw in Toushiro's direction afterwards…

…And there was so _much_ that said world wanted to dump on his head recently that he almost _couldn't fuckin believe it_: from the fact that his parents had obviously _forgotten_ to mention they'd be travelling somewhere away for the weekend (having him discover that precious information on his own upon arriving home from school on Friday), to the fact that his aggravating smoking habit was messing with his sports achievements, and finally to the newly developed nightmare that was Sakai Takeo, his history teacher.

Not that the last five days of detention had been all that terrible – quite the opposite actually, if he had to be completely and painfully honest – what bothered the boy, however, was that he was starting to look forward to the short after class discussion that he and the newly employed man were having during the assigned time for punishment. For the first time, after probably years of neglect, someone was making the effort to challenge Hitsugaya's analytical and logical thinking, and the teen was _loving_ it. The questions that they picked up were always carefully selected, designed to have answers that required more than a superficial supposition and so boredom or unwillingness were never an option. Toushiro was meant to look into more than a single aspect of the puzzle to be successful in his responds, plucking clues and facts from his vast knowledge of the epoch, the rulers, the influence of numerous side factors, religions, territorial location and so on… Whenever he thought he had a statement, Sakai would prod at the theory given, pointing out weak strands in the otherwise immaculate fabric of the teen's thinking, and Hitsugaya would have to repudiate all opposing arguments till his idea was completely clear and nicely presented. Sometimes they took breaks from their history-related topics and talked about something else, the ease in which the conversation flowed always catching Toushiro off guard, simply because… because he wasn't _used _to speaking so lightly with people in general, let alone with adults that he knew for no more than a week. The closeness that he was suddenly feeling towards this Takeo person filled the student up with a new kind of trepidation, an anxiety that stung like a paper-cut across a delicate little finger, for no matter what kind of a rebellious, defiant attitude Hitsugaya had always flaunted about, this was his _teacher_. He couldn't… it wasn't _right_ to befriend higher authority that was so directly connected to you and expect for that turn out well in the end…

…But there was nothing to worry about, right? Nothing. They were both aware of when and where to stop, were they not…?

Toushiro paused his train of thoughts, swallowing a large gulp from his drink and letting the mix of warm and cold _awake_ and at the same time _shake_ his body into alertness… A few stray memories nudged at his righteous, almost demure conviction about the situation he had found himself in and he frowned uneasily, because the more he went back to his detention hours from the past week or so, the more he stumbled upon simple little details that tickled his insecurity and doubts, leaving him more confused than ever… If he didn't know any better and he had to judge Sakai's behavior from a side viewer's side, he'd think that the man was after more than an innocent liaison between himself and the boy, although-… although _that_ was, of course, _ridiculous_. The genial, merely half-hidden looks that the teacher was giving Hitsugaya every once in a while, the depth of those dark eyes as they watched the white-haired teen speak with unparalleled fluency and nearly vain eloquence about a certain question or the warm hand that stayed the tiniest bit too long on Toushiro's shoulder in a supposed offer for approval… those were just meaningless, unimportant things. Accidents. Nothing that the boy needed to think about now, or _ever_ for that matter…

Glancing down at the plastic cup in his hands, Hitsugaya arched a brow, surprised at how quickly he had managed to consume his beverage without even noticing. His drink was nearly finished and he found himself in need for another one, and so he reached for the rum, taking a generous gulp straight from the bottle despite what good manners authoritatively decreed. The undiluted alcohol burned his throat a little, but other than that it went down smoothly, simultaneously kindling the familiar urge for a smoke in the boy's body along with the wake of spicy fire that the liquid left in its wake. _Right… _Pulling out a cigarette with a couple of frugal, terse movements, Toushiro lit the end of the stick deftly and rose to his feet, satisfied to feel a certain wave of dizziness grip at his limbs. _Fuckin' finally!_

Sucking in a good proportion of smoke, Toushiro started making his way across the yard, pausing occasionally to release a neat consecution of white circles in the air above his head and gaze up at the star studded sky with a bit of a dreamy smile on his face. The noises from the house seemed peculiarly dulled at the moment, suffocated under the protective, pleasantly warm blanket of the alcohol and the boy giggled oddly, noticing for the first time that he was still carrying the rum with himself. One glass bottle in hand and an ignited tobacco stick in the other, Hitsugaya reached the tall stone fence that surrounded his yard and looked up at it from below with inexplicable (and a bit disturbing) interest. The numerous sneaking-outs at night had provided him with the necessary knowledge of where it was the easiest place to climb this thing and, strangely enough, he was standing at the spot in question at this very moment, bouncing rhythmically on the balls of his feet as though the motion would somehow help him surmount the obstacle in front of him more easily. _Hm…? _Without really thinking much about it, Toushiro dropped the rum beside his foot and ducked under one of the thick, dark-leaved bushes nearby, emerging moments later with a foldable step-ladder. _Let's see what we can do now… _His fingers seemed a bit unwilling to cooperate, deriding him in their dumb, lazy hopes to get away from the situation without being used, but Hitsugaya proved that he was _so_ much smarter than the little bastards, a victorious laughter blossoming on his lips as he eventually stretched the large piece of plastic to its original size.

"There." The boy muttered, standing up straight and dusting his hands off. "You thought you were cooler than me, but look who's defeated now."

Toushiro decided that the ladder looked plenty of ashamed of itself once he voiced that comment and it made him feel all pleased and fuzzy on the inside. Nodding approvingly to no one in particular, he took another few gulps of rum before leaving the bottle on the ground with the promise that he would be back soon, and then launched into the valiant mission of climbing the stone mountain before him, the magnificent struggle lasting for several minutes until he finally found himself seated on the top of the wall with his leg dangling off on the other side.

After that he wasn't sure how much time he spent on top of the cold stony wall, but he finished off five whole cigarettes in a lazy, monotone sequence. By the time he picked the sixth one, he had grown quite bored of sitting in one place and after failing to remember why what he was about to do was considered a bad idea, he picked himself up and stood on the edge of the fence, swaying just a bit as he tried to simultaneously keep his balance and continue smoking. The alcohol was maybe messing with his judgment, he imagined briefly, because suddenly the wall didn't feel all that tall, it just seemed a bit narrow for his walking to be very fast or very easy. No matter though, the boy decided, releasing a thin string of smoke from the side of his mouth, nothing that his ninja skills couldn't tackle with ease…

"T-… Toushiro, is that you?" the familiar voiced reached him from seemingly miles and miles below and he turned around very slowly, suspicion marring his features, twisting his face in a vaguely unaware and twice as disbelieving expression.

"Sakai-sensei." The boy muttered, pulling the cigarette away from his mouth for a trice as he stared down at the man that stood on the street side of his fence. Clad in a light beige coat and a pair of casual sky-blue jeans, the teacher had stopped on the sidewalk a couple of meters away from the teen and was staring up at his student with a mix of shock and something that actually looked like concern. "What are you doing here?"

Takeo's frown deepened at the sound of Hitsugaya's voice (possibly detecting some slurring in the usually clearly defined speech) and he tipped his head back, seemingly trying to scrutinize the white-haired genius' face without being too obvious about it. Toushiro found the scene partially amusing and partially endearing, their little tryst here making him let out a soft, watery laughter. _Damn_, fate definitely had its way to jeer at people's misfortune…

"I live a couple of blocks away from here, and I decided to go for a walk… Are you drunk?"

"Ah." Hitsugaya muttered contently, closing his eyes for a moment – a decision that actually nearly made him lose his balance. "I love night walks so much."

"Are you _drunk_, Toushiro?"

"Stop calling me that!" the boy snapped suddenly, riveting an unexpectedly angry gaze at the man beside the fence. "You don't care. You don't care like the _rest_ of them. So _stop _calling me that!"

"Okay." The man breathed carefully, a benevolent crease appearing between his brows as he made a couple of steps backwards so he could have a better look at his student. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be disrespectful. Do you want to come down now?"

"No." Toushiro hissed immediately, his jaw tightening with inexplicably caustic emotion. He took a long drag from his cigarette, but oddly enough, his favourite fix didn't make him feel any better, and he pulled the stick away from his lips, giving it a rather accusing stare before chucking the thing to the side. _Useless. _"Why would I want to come down? It's perfect up here."

"You can hurt yourself." Sakai enunciated cautiously, his hands that had previously rested securely in the pockets of his jacket, now sneaking out to uncover slightly shaking fingers. "It's pretty high where you're standing… let's finish our conversation down on the ground, what do you say?"

"Why would I want to come down?" Toushiro repeated, this time a little more sharply, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he wrapped his arms around his stomach and directed a strangely unseeing gaze up at the sky. "I don't think anyone would care if I broke my neck. I assume my parents- they-" he let out a curt, dry laughter, his lashes fluttering against a weak waft of wind. "I'm pretty sure they'd be relieved. Especially my father… The way he looks at me these days… _If_ he looks at all… It's like he would do anything to get me out of his life."

"Come now. That can't be true." Takeo insisted congenially, but the condescending tone that threaded its strand-like digits into those words made something inside the teen wring like a wounded snake with no teeth. "There is a good chance this is just the alcohol talking."

"Yeah?" Hitsugaya ground out snidely, turning around so that he was completely facing his teacher, feet perpendicular to the length of the wall beneath him as they posed a little perilously on the miniscule stone area. "Tell me then. How is it so that they hardly notice if I'm home or not? How is it that the moment I enter this fucking house I become invisible? How come they _forgot_ to tell me they won't be home the whole weekend? _Huh_?" fighting to swallow the lump in his throat, Toushiro clutched his waist harder, _tighter_, a surprisingly vivid expression of desperation etched in that one single gesture, as the boy let his body bent a little towards the man below him in an attempt to get his point across to the teacher. "I don't get to call my parents 'mom' or 'dad', did you know that? Yes, _sir_. Of course, _mother_. Kissing and hugging are completely out of the question, showing affection to your own child is a damn embarrassment, don't you get it? If my father ever touches me, it's to backhand me or squeeze my arm so he can drag me around more efficiently… these people… they are _not_ my family!"

"Toushiro, listen to me-" the man began anxiously, but Hitsugaya cut him off with an angry snarl, his lips pressing tightly together for a moment.

"I _told_ you not to call me that!" he spat out, swaying once in his place with the gusto of the exclamation. The movement was too sharp though, too impulsive in its drunk-related roots, and before he could realize his mistake, Toushiro had lost his balance…

It wasn't like he hadn't expected it, deep inside, beneath the cockiness and the soothing membrane that the alcohol had thrown over his consciousness, he knew it would come to this at some point, that sooner or later his inattentiveness and frustration would push him over the edge, and yet… yet the shock and fear came nonetheless, overwhelming and powerful, hot and cold, inside and out, and he yelped as his feet started to peel off the fence and the world tilted like a cracked movie screen around him. His eyes snapped wide open, arms barely having the time to try and regain his counterpoise in a couple of chaotic flails, before he found himself in the oddly consoling gravity lapse that always came before the fall itself. A ragged breath, a cry, and then the ground was sucking his body towards its greedy embrace and he could do nothing but lift his elbows before his face. He was going to break his neck and he knew it, this was it, _this was it_… but surprisingly, no life-changing thoughts crowded his head, no memories, unfulfilled dreams and desires… His mind was all just a blank, white page of primal need to keep living, to survive…

Then arms… Warm, strong, welcoming arms.

He clutched them with willingness and hope that he hardly even managed to comprehend at the moment, eyes still squeezed tight shut as he buried his face in the neck of his savior, letting the words of solace, the caring shushing in his ear, slowly brush the thorns of terror from his shaking shoulders. Somewhere at the back of his mind, an amused voice pointed out how oddly familiar this scene was to that time when Renji had decided to pull a prank on him… It felt so different though. So sweet. The last thing that Toushiro wanted was to let go, to be alone again, empty, forgotten…

"I'm sorry. I didn't know." Sakai whispered in his ear, and then a warm breath danced across his cheek and Hitsugaya slowly opened his eyes to peer timidly at the man that held him. "I didn't know…"

And then that hot mouth was on his and Toushiro was falling apart, thawing like a tiny ice crystal into the kiss. Disappearing. For what he craved was a final, real forever.

* * *

><p>Toushiro blinked slowly, once, and the thin sheen of the memories melted from his eyes, leaving them bare and him – strangely defeated. Ichigo's brown orbs – openly concerned despite what the boy had just spilled so brassily a couple of minutes ago - were glued on his with expectation, understanding, patience … and Hitsugaya didn't know how to do this. He had no idea how to explain to this person that he wasn't sure that for his nineteen years of life someone had ever managed to teach him how to be happy. Wasn't it an impossible, ridiculous, laughable mission now? Hadn't he learned that caring for someone was just a fleeting dream, a deceitful melody of a nightingale, the echo of somebody's laughter miles and miles away from here, and the shadow of a forbidden, damned smile. A lingering memory of an old, old kiss always tasted worse than the lack of any recollections whatsoever of a beloved person's lips on your anxious, eager ones, and as painful as it was to admit it, when the warm arms around you finally let go, you felt colder than ever, <em>lonelier<em> than ever, a pitifully, indiscernible, dispensable grey picture in an iridescent and joyful world…

"He never told me." Hitsugaya whispered finally, his eyes lowering as he bit the side of his mouth, long, slender fingers digging painfully in the sheets that covered his thigh. "He never told me he was married. I didn't know… Not until she caught us, anyways." He smiled bitterly at the seemingly ancient image that was now playing in his mind, the familiar, inconsolable ache inside his chest flaring like an awakened flame that burnt his skin, his breath, his heart… "I don't know if she came back home early that day or if he just hadn't made the right calculations. She caught us in a fairy innocent, although unmistakable position, with me on top of him, both of us fully clothed. That little detail helped me save his ass in front of the judge later on, although sometimes I wish she had seen us going at it…" taking the now finished cigarette from his right hand and transferring it to the left one, the boy stared for a moment at the place where most tobacco addicts had their skin yellowing atrociously and sighed. His was still smooth and white. At least that much he had preserved by knowing how to smoke intelligently. "I loved him so much… _So much_, that I was ready to do everything that he asked me to. So when he begged me to take the blame, to save his family from collapse… I didn't even hesitate. He had someone to fight for, he had kids, a wife… what did I have?"

"A name to lose?" Ichigo muttered cautiously, but the boy just scoffed, shaking his head sadly.

"Nothing that mattered all that much… So I told everybody that I had tried to seduce him. I admitted my guilt to so many things… Persistent phone calling, spying, blackmailing, stalking in general… I said that this was the first time that I had got close to Sakai, that we had never had an actual relationship and that he wasn't to be blamed for my 'innate desire to always get what I wanted '. I claimed, in front of the whole court, and in that way in front of Karakura itself, that I had been trying to buy myself higher grades by getting in my teacher's bed..." Another sneer, this one much more mordant than the previous one and then he continued more quietly, almost like a beast, hissing dangerously at an approaching invader. "Like I fucking needed better grades… Like everybody who knew me weren't aware that I didn't have to do this to excel in class… But of course, once the dirt was out, there wasn't a single soul that didn't believe it. It suddenly became incredibly suspicious that I'd always be a full A student with my escapades and whatnot constantly running at the background, and eventually nobody believed that I had a single brain-cell in my head anymore. Being a month or two away from becoming 18 saved me from so many things, but it got me into just as many problems. By the time the lawsuit was over, I was technically an adult. I got kicked out of school, then…" Toushiro paused, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment as his hands began to shake, a horrendous, overwhelming tornado of anger, disappointment and discontent suddenly pressing down on his chest. "…then the day of my birthday, my father told me to get the hell out of his house, that I was no longer welcomed there after putting such a stain on him and _his family_'s face. He clocked me twenty minutes to pack and then he threw me out. Just like that. I haven't seen him since."

Gathering his hands in his lap meekly, Toushiro lowered his gaze, waiting quietly for Ichigo's verdict. He was pretty sure that his rather repulsive type of pallor had returned full-power, sucking every bit of colour from his flesh and leaving his skin seemingly paper-thin, insipidly greyish at places and hideously dead in comparison to the beautiful milky white that usually attracted the attention of so many people. He could recall seeing himself in such a condition more than a year ago when the media had caught a couple of pictures of him on his way out of the court, and what could be seen on those shots was a frail, queasy and ailing creature with breakable wrists and fingers, cinereous lips and the odd, forbidding radiance of a cripple. If Ichigo decided that this was the end, that they couldn't keep going, then Hitsugaya was okay with that, he was ready to gather his clothes as quickly as possible and abscond the scene. He had no choice but to be prepared for such an outcome.

No choice.

He felt some movement from the model's direction, but in lieu of looking up, her just squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for something, expecting a direct order. But instead of any words, yelling or screaming, the warmth of a large hand covering his own one awakened his senses, and then a pair of warm lips was pressing against his temple, the side of his face, his jawline.

"Thank you for telling me." The carrot-top muttered against the boy's ear and then his mouth was covering his lover's one and for the longest moment Toushiro felt as though he might cry. Chucking his long ago burnt cigarette to the side neglectfully, he wrapped his arms around Ichigo's neck and pulled the taller male closer, thinking for the first time in his life that maybe things were going to be okay… Maybe. Maybe. _Maybe_…

…_Or were they?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: Wow, congratulations if you reached the end (without skipping, otherwise no congratulations). Review! ^^ I had a birthday this week.**  
><em>


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N: I don't have much to say. For those who read more of my stories, you might catch a few hints from my other projects and eventually my future writing plans.**_

Song: Despicable Me by Pharell

* * *

><p>Iridescent<p>

Chapter 5

_I'm having a bad, bad day_

_It's about time that I get my way_

_steam rolling whatever I see, huh_

_despicable me_

_I'm having a bad, bad day_

_if you take it personal, that's ok,_

_watch this is so fun to see, huh_

_despicable me…_

Maybe it was an immature thing to do, maybe it was cliché, weird or just plain creepy, but Ichigo couldn't help it – he was staring. It was one of those feeling you get when you are stuck on the borderline between being amused and at the same time absolutely charmed by the sight of someone, and although he hadn't experienced anything like that in ages, with _anyone_, he found himself growing gravely addicted to the sensation with every passing minute. With his forearm rested against the doorframe that connected his living-room and the kitchen, a mobile phone clutched in his other hand and already dressed up in clothes to kill, the model was a just the tiniest bit shocked to discover himself completely mesmerized by the sight of his little boyfriend, clad in one of the taller man's old shirts and a pair of boxers, currently seated on the sofa with a bowl of pop-corn and one long, pale legs tucked under his tiny ass, watching with wide teal eyes some sci-fi shit on the plasma TV. In moments like this one, Toushiro really did look like a kid: too lazy to put something proper on, too uncaring for what was right or wrong to eat a decent meal, too entranced by a silly movie for nerdy teenagers to pay attention to anything or anyone else. Every now and then, the boy would gasp, chuckle or let out some other random sound, wrinkling his nose with annoyance when something in the plotline twisted not according to his liking, and on a couple of occasions Ichigo even caught the white-haired lad throwing pieces of his snack at the screen. It was all resembling a sort of humorous sketch pulled out from a book, all those idiotic gestures, exclamations and actions, fitting so well and yet so _not_ well with the bitchy, obnoxious, egocentric, hormone-driven Hitsugaya that the carrot-top had grown so fond of during the last few weeks. This boy's whole form – from the bony knees, to the decadently bared shoulder, the tousled white locks, long, slender neck and white, smooth arms – it all screamed trouble. So much trouble, and so much frustration, and so much sex, shocks, problems and wrong turns… that it made Ichigo feel high just thinking about it

"Kyouraku wants to talk to you about something." Ichigo called, having to have to clear his throat so he could make his voice sound as steady as usual. Not even bothering to look away from the TV screen, Toushiro stuffed a handful of pop-corn in his mouth and answered only half-coherently:

"Tell him I'm not home."

"You _aren't_ home. This is my place." The carrot-top pointed out dryly and Toushiro turned to look at him with wide, slightly bewildered eyes that merely blinked once when he finally managed to swallow what had been jammed in his mouth just a second ago.

"Yeah." He replied with that 'duh!' kind of tone that kids liked so much, jerking his right shoulder in a tiny shrug. "So you won't be lying."

_Of course_. Ichigo thought with a roll of his eyes_. Because that makes it okay._

"That's not the point and you know it."

"No, I don't." the boy argued flatly, squishing a piece of pop-corn between his fingers a bit too viciously for it to match the forcedly sweet voice that he was using. "Why the hell would I want to talk to your friend? He was living under the impression that I was whoring myself to get to your money."

"_Toushiro_!"

"_Ichigo!_" the boy mocked with an overly high-pitched voice, swiftly sending another pop-corn to the grave. "Dammit, why are you using that daddy tone on me?"

"Because you're acting like a child." The carrot-top bit back, already pushing himself away from the door-frame and taking a couple of steps towards the sofa. "Just hear him out, okay? By some inexplicable and unimaginable stroke of luck, you somehow managed to leave a good first impression on him, so now he wants to see if you two can actually do business together. Take this call. You have nothing to lose."

Hitsugaya let out a small growl and wrapped both arms around the bowl of pop-corn, hugging it tightly to his chest as though he was expecting Ichigo to try and wrench it from his grasp.

"Stop telling me what to do in my own house!" the boy snapped flatly.

"It's _not_ your house!"

"Gah, okay, you're so fuckin' selfish!" Toushiro exclaimed in frustration, deftly hopping off the sofa and skipping past the carrot-top when the man tried to sit down next to him. Bare feet maneuvered soundlessly and effortlessly across the carpet and without so much as a warning glance in his boyfriend's direction, the teen disappeared in the kitchen along with his snack. "Talk to your own friend since this is your house."

Seeing as that made little to no sense at all, it took the model a few seconds to comprehend what had just left Hitsugaya's mouth, and then he let out a small sound of helpless irritation and proceeded to follow his lover. He found the boy on his tiptoes, trying to make as little contact as possible with the freezing tiles in the kitchen, disheveled head buried in the fridge as he searched for something that was probably completely inappropriate for consumption in the early hours of the morning.

"You're running out of beer." Toushiro muttered and emerged with a can of the said beverage, slamming the door of the fridge with a dramatic flourish that made the carrot-top cringe. His tone had adapted a different flavor though, one that felt much harder and more earnest, and the lack of the tart playfulness from just a few seconds ago, had Ichigo's brows knitting in a vaguely bewildered scowl. _What just happened? _Before him, approaching the round wooden table in the center of the room, the smaller male reached for his lighter and cigarettes (which he had apparently left there at some point before getting engrossed in the movie) and drew one tobacco stick, poising it between his fingers with a single over-hasty gesture that actually looked slightly angry. The soft sibilant sound of air entering the erstwhile vacuum of the beer slipped across the room and then Hitsugaya was sipping the drink, an acid expression twisting his features for a reason that obviously had nothing to do with the taste of what he was currently entering his system.

"Are you okay?" Ichigo asked softly, a hint of concern entering his voice as he surveyed his lover, taking into account the sudden sense of animosity that had enveloped the smaller male's lithe form. Placing the can on the table, Toushiro remained with his gaze fixed on the thing for a few long moments, before glancing up at the carrot-top.

"Give me the phone."

The line sounded sharper than before, kindda urgent, like a behest that demanded complete and utter compliance despite what the consequences could be, and for a few moments Ichigo honestly wondered whether this was a good idea after all. Eyeing the teen with raising suspicion, Ichigo hesitated for a second and then slowly crossed the distance between himself and the boy, suddenly disliking the massive furniture that was standing in the way and physically keeping them apart. Toushiro was watching him rather rigidly, with unnaturally shrunk pupils and tightly lined mouth, so it should've come as no surprise that mere moments after the carrot-top had begun lifting his hand towards his boyfriend, the boy had snatched the phone, pressed the 'decline' button and slammed the poor device on the wooden surface beside him.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Ichigo exclaimed in shock, jaw tightening in brief frustration as he reached to run an agitated hand through his tuft of flashy hair. He noticed the teen tense again at the slightly louder voice, stiffening in that very specific, expectant manner in which he had not so long ago (upon the beginning of their morning conversation) but this time Hitsugaya managed to cover up his involuntary reaction better, squeezing the edge of the table as guarded, yet stubborn teal eyes gazed right up in the carrot-top's ones through a web of messy white bangs. Taking a trice to collect himself, the model surveyed attentively the way the boy's chest heaved in half-hidden anxiety, the oversized shirt hanging seemingly even lower on the thin frame, exposing more of that pallor-stricken shoulder in a picture of naked vulnerability that was only contradicted with the unlit cigarette which was sticking out from between the teen's fingers.

"I don't need anyone's help." Toushiro ground out at last, pulling back from the table in order to finally light his poison, the thin strings of white smoke swirling between his lips with a relieved exhalation that had the taller male pressing his lips together in a grimace of mild disapproval. Whether his diminutive lover realized this or not, whether it was a conscious decision of the mind, or an involuntary ultimate resort for the body, the boy was literally hiding behind his foul habit… Reaching for a source of alleviation while putting up a mask that was slowly chipping at his health, but which was, in one way or the other, building a reserved and slightly caustic image of the otherwise incredibly fragile-looking person. "I don't _need_ you to do _anything_ to impress me. Big news flash: you _already_ got in my pants."

The words stung in a very unexpected way, drilling in the carrot-top's chest with the persistence of a boring machine and he narrowed his eyes in vague disbelief of what he had just heard. Before him the smaller male simply stepped towards the sink and leaned against it, his left forearm placed along the length of the edge and his right elbow propped up beside it so his cigarette was hovering around his mouth's level.

"Why are you acting like this?" Ichigo asked quietly, slowly making his way towards his lover, only to end up being completely ignored as Hitsugaya's eyes remained glued on some soap bubble near the tap, which was apparently refusing to pop. "Not everything that happens should come with a price… Sometimes you're just lucky."

Toushiro's lips twisted in a crooked, humorless smile and he shook his head only once, taking an exceptionally deep drag from his cigarette as though the thing would actually help him come up with a good enough answer for that blunt statement. There was pessimism in his face, watery traces of grief that spread their kaleidoscopic touches all across the previously serene expression, and for one painful minute the sight left Ichigo in even more bewilderment than before.

"I don't know." The teen stated bitterly, one brow forming an ironic little arch as he tilted his head slightly to the side and continued watching through half-lidded eyes some distanced spot beyond the confines of the walls. "I don't think I've ever got anything without paying double its worth. And I can't bring myself to believe that this friend of yours just suddenly decided to take interest in me, drawn by my incredible charms, or something even more ridiculous, like my talent."

"But you _are_ talented."

"You don't know that!" Hitsugaya snapped sharply, turning his head to glare with insulted jade eyes at his lover. "You're just saying what you think I want to hear!"

"That's not true." The carrot-top tried to protest, but his words drowned in a tiny, half-muffled snicker that shook the smaller lad's body, the twisted, unnatural sound somehow sucking in every molecule of light from the room. As he pushed himself away from the sink and threw his half-finished cigarette inside it, Toushiro gave his boyfriend a long, dry look, his own pale features twisted into something that actually looked surprisingly malicious.

"Guess being a model doesn't make you a good actor, does it?" the teen uttered sarcastically, and before Ichigo could react in any way, the white-haired bloke had brushed right past him, hurrying towards the staircase and what he assumed was the carrot-top's bedroom, most likely with the intention to get dressed and leave. Without really giving himself the time to think things over, the taller male rushed right after the boy, managing to grasp the thin pale arm halfway up the steps, and hold Toushiro in place despite the unbidden distaste that immediately dissipated across the teen's face.

"Will you hear me out for a moment?"

"I honestly don't want to." Hitsugaya admitted, making a futile attempt to jerk his arm free, only to grow still again after merely a few seconds. The carrot-top wouldn't let up.

"Please… Just listen." Ichigo spoke up slowly, appeasingly, climbing another couple of steps so he could stand right in front of the smaller male, gazing down at the pair of stubbornly narrowed eyes with his own soothing brown ones. "_Yes_, Kyouraku is my friend, and _yes_, he's done favours for me many, many times before… But those favors have never, _ever_, had anything to do with my relationships, yet alone my attempts to make a good impression on somebody, because if anything – I've got enough problems with gold-diggers as it is, I need no other reason to attract their attention." He paused, biting the side of his mouth as he let go of his boyfriend's arm and reached to tuck a mess snowy lock behind the teen's ear instead. "Kyouraku has been managing promising artists for as long as I can remember, that I can tell you. He has an eye for these things, whoever he touches, literally turns to gold… People are _lining up_ to get him to even _look_ at their works, and you get _him_ to try to seek _you_ out and you refuse to even see what it is about? I swear to you, I did nothing to influence his opinion, I've never even thought about it. I don't know what it is exactly that made him go after a complete stranger, but obviously he decided you are worthy of his attention … So give it a chance. That's all I ask. Just meet him tomorrow for a coffee, discuss with him whatever it is that you two need to discuss, and if it doesn't work out… then fine. At least you've tried. But don't let the chance slip away because you don't believe in your own abilities, and you don't believe in me. We already went through the worst. Don't ruin things just because you're afraid."

"Tomorrow is Monday." Toushiro protested unimpressively and the man raised an amused brow, his hand that was still resting a finger behind the teen's ear, moving to bury completely in the mop of white spikes.

"I very clearly remember you saying you were taking a day off." Ichigo chuckled lowly, scraping his dull fingernails along the boy's scalp. Hitsugaya's scowl visibly softened under the treatment and he sighed contentedly, allowing his boyfriend to pull him closer to his larger, taller body. As the carrot-top leaned in, nuzzling along his lover's cheekbone and feeling Toushiro's body slowly relax under the caresses, he could tell that he was winning.

"Fine. An hour." The smaller lad mumbled finally, the dryness in his voice crumbling like old chalk as Ichigo brushed his lips along the boy's ones, careful not to make too much contact.

"Promise?" the model whispered playfully, his free hand sneaking down with tantalizing slowness towards the teen's boxes-clad ass. Toushiro rolled his eyes with a dramatic sigh.

"Yes, promise."

"Thank you." Ichigo grinned, but just as he dived to get an actual kiss from his boyfriend, Hitsugaya jerked back, one brow arching quizzically over the other.

"Can I go back to watching TV now? I'm done throwing a tantrum for the time being."

* * *

><p>Hinamori opened the door at about the third rap, emerging from inside the house with a cup of streaming coffee in her tiny hand and slightly disheveled black hair. She eyed the person in front of her with faint surprise but didn't let her expression change much afterward, probably still too sleepy to move her facial muscles in the right directions:<p>

"Shiro-chan's still not up." She muttered, lifting her palm to cover up a yawn. "It's barely 7.15am, Ichigo, what do you need?"

"Your cousin." The carrot-top replied a bit too urgently, peeking over her shoulder inside the building with impatient, restless brown orbs. "He's supposed to be up by now, he has a meeting."

"A meeting?" Hinamori repeated mechanically and shook her head a little to get rid of some of the drowsiness that was still clutching her mind in a very much alluring embrace. "I don't think so. He specifically pointed out he was getting a day off today and… and I'm pretty sure he stayed up very late last night."

_Of course he did. _Ichigo rolled his eyes, barely keeping himself from letting out a loud, frustrated and very inelegant groan.

"Which would be why I'm here." He explained laconically. "To drag him out of his bed against his will."

A moment of empty silence followed after that, dragging in a wave of mutual understanding and making the girl lift a single shoulder in a tiny shrug.

"Reasonable." she commented finally (and with a lot of decorum) and then gracefully stepped aside, her right hand with the coffee cup sticking up its pinkie finger in the direction of the house. "Be my guest."

Nodding gratefully to Hinamori, the carrot-top swiftly slid inside, making his way to his lover's room with no more than a couple of directions from Toushiro's cousin. As he reached the needed door however, perfectly unaware of what the white-haired boy's 'headquarters' looked like, he had to admit that more or less, he could've guessed where the teen was hiding rather accurately all on his own if he had really tried... Before him, thoroughly and determinedly, every inch of the once smooth wooden surface had been covered with elaborate signatures and words of different kind, random letters and sentences winding together in strings of senseless gibberish that overall depicted something completely unexpected. And quite frankly, very, very impressive. From lianas, wild-flowers and abstractly-drawn ivy, to clawing fingers, poisonous insects and crumbling buildings, the poor door appeared literally _infested_ by the pictures, seemingly bending under the weight of the teeming, abstract load. The carrot-top could only imagine how long it had taken for all of this to be illustrated upon the erstwhile clean barrier that now stood so proudly in front of him, and it made him feel surprisingly uneasy, because if anything… He would've never considered Hitsugaya as someone who spent hours on a single task, for any reason. Any at all…

_What do I know…_

Wrapping his hand around the handle, Ichigo pushed forward with badly planned gusto, only to jump back with a disgusted expression when the door flung open and without any warning whatsoever, the room gleefully spat out an explosion of thick cigarette smoke right in the model's face. A sickly-sweet scent of some oriental concoction could be discerned from the familiar bitter tobacco smell, but whether it was better or worse from Hitsugaya's usual poison, it was hard to tell. The combination of the two was enough to kill every living being that had the misfortune to enter, and just-… _Dammit! _Gritting his teeth and trying quite uselessly to inhale as little as possible, the man slowly entered the bedroom, narrowing his eyes at the darkness that he was met with. He failed to find the lights' switch and stumbled towards the window, somehow finding it without hitting himself in the process. His fingers discovered the thinning dark curtain and with one abrupt movement, he pulled the fabric back to let some sunlight illuminate the place, a sad little smile twisting his lips when he finally came face-to-face with where his boyfriend spent most of his time.

_What a hole… _Toushiro's curled up and slumbering form was about the first thing that he noticed. After that, as his eyes adjusted to the sudden changes in the environment, more started to pop out. A small bed against the back of the room. A chair, completely buried underneath tons of wrinkled clothes. A still glowing laptop on the floor, near the leg of the bed… And something that could've been a wardrobe, but appeared rather shaky and unreliable from the slightly askew position in which it was currently standing. He could see old, overflowing ashtrays at about every place possible, bringing a sort of unkempt and cave-like appearance in the already suspicious atmosphere. There was something resembling a small dark-blue hookah in the corner (possibly the source of the sweet, fruity smell) – looking like it had been used a few hours or so ago – and a half-eaten chocolate bar, which was currently occupying the tiny excuse of a bedside table beside the boy's head.

_God, one of these days he's going to suffocate in his sleep if he keeps living like this…_

"Toushiro…" Ichigo quickly crossed the distance between himself and his boyfriend, shaking the thin shoulder a little too harshly for it to be considered a loving, affectionate wake up. In respond to the treatment, Hitsugaya let out a small whine, frowned tightly with his eyes still closed and tried to swat the offending hand away. "Get up! You're going to be late, you need to wake up _now_!"

"What time is it?" the boy lisped only half-coherently and when his lover replied with something that started with 'seven-', the teen let out a loud groan and tried to bury himself beneath the blanket. "You're insane, I went to bed like 3 hours ago!"

Unmoved by the declaration, Ichigo swiftly grabbed a hold of the covers and proceeded to yank them off of the smaller male, watching in satisfaction the offended expression that emerged on Toushiro's face, effectively chasing away the one of inert reluctance.

"You promised."

"I don't give a fuck, I'm tired!" the boy ground out inarticulately but the small tremor that travelled down his spine as a result of the lack of actual protection to his bare arms had him finally opening his eyes. "Seriously, Kurosaki, this isn't funny!"

"You were never planning to keep your word, were you?" Ichigo noticed a little spitefully, a scowl of his own making its way across his face. "You just said that so I could leave you alone. You said it to achieve some sort of a momentary peace, then got home, smoked all kinds of garbage till you couldn't breathe and watched movies long enough for your eyes to get too sore to stay focused on anything. Am I right?."

Toushiro slowly turned away and let his eyelids fall shut again, biting the pillow under his head for a few seconds before uttering quietly:

"It's not true." He paused, and then curled a little further into himself to possibly keep his body warmer. "I hate how you make it sound."

"Then how would you like it to sound?" it came out a bit more sharply than he had expected, _aggressively_ somehow despite the man's best intentions, and Ichigo nearly couldn't believe it when instead of pulling out the argumentative tone in retaliation to the frustration-oozing question, Hitsugaya mumbled very, very hesitantly.

"I-…I don't know."

Something in those words and the tentative manner in which they were spoken made Ichigo lose every desire to fight, his features gradually softening as he detected the hint of apprehension that crept inside his lover's voice. For the first time since he had met the kid - whether because Toushiro was still too sleepy to realize what he was letting out, or because the carrot-top had become more attentive to the boy's reactions - the model actually sensed _fear_. A deep, inmost, _overwhelming_ fear of rejection, of being disappointed because of groundlessly laid hopes, of… maybe just of proving himself unworthy in the face of someone who mattered. It was funny to ascribe such emotions to the eccentric little Hitsugaya that he had slowly learned to adore and even more slowly began to understand the past few weeks… Those feelings were just too plain… Too banal for the infamous, ever-scandalizing mayor's son. And yet, there, _there_ they were anyways, spiking up like pins in a duvet and scratching against Toushiro's thick façade with persistent and angry fingers… Indecisiveness, hidden under too many layers of feigned callosity. Hesitation, depicted in watery and elusive colours that seemed almost impossible to make out if you weren't looking. Then distrust. Hostility. _Loneliness_...

…As strange as it was, Ichigo found those little weaknesses nearly physically painful to watch…

"C'mon…" the carrot-top bent down to slink an arm under his lover's head, pleased to find no real resistance as he pulled the boy up into a sitting position and the slowly guided the smaller male off the bed. Hitsugaya looked like he was barely aware of what he was doing, his head immediately falling against the model's shoulder as he was tugged to his feet and supported by the man's body with what could be described as embarrassing ease. Through the thin, fraying blue pajamas, the teen felt _tiny_; nothing like the bull-headed, obstinate white-haired bloke who cursed, mocked and littered with cigarette smoke every cubicle of open space that had the misfortune to stand in his way… And as though aware of the vulnerable air that his morning exhaustion had surrounded him with, Toushiro offered no more arguing, no more struggles… Just quiet, almost sad acceptance. "You need to go take a shower."

He said the last part softly, carefully, mindful of his lover's still half-functioning brain and the fatigue that was probably tormenting every cell in the teen's being, but despite the caution, Toushiro flinched anyways, lifting up his forearm to place it weakly between their bodies.

"Dammit, I-… this must've repulsed you for a lifetime…" the boy whispered in that defeated, bitter tone that Ichigo had no idea how to deal with. _God, this is terribly ironic… _Irritable, sarcastic, _caustic _Toushiro he could handle. He could douse his boyfriend's horrible temper just fine if he absolutely had to, and he had proven that on more than one occasion since the two of them had got together, but these insecurities… They were just too hard to understand. Too _rare _to have the chance to observe properly. And they left Ichigo feeling completely and utterly useless… "…I don't even want to know what all of this looks like to you… And this is _not,_ by far, the _worst_ of me that you could see."

Raising a hand to bury his fingers in the tuft of messy white hair, Ichigo bent down to deliver a firm kiss on the crown of the tousled snowy locks. He hoped the gesture was enough to erase the bubbling tide of doubts that were probably diligently crowding the teen's mind at the moment, but something told him that he would have to earn the privilege of Hitsugaya's full trust with much more than a single peck. The boy had probably seen and felt too many fake kisses by now, too many message-less lip-locks to believe that an unspoken vow was truly an honest, valid promise indeed. And it was rather odd… It was odd that for all the things that Toushiro had gone through, for all the shit that he had been force to take - not only from this town, but from his previous lover and his supposed family as well - the carrot-top wanted to apologize. He wanted to say that he was sorry, that he wished he had been there and done something to spare the boy the aches that a mere teenager just didn't deserve to go through, and he wanted to understand, at least for himself, where this guilt came from to him… Was it just because he realized well enough that Hitsugaya would never receive the apology he deserved from the people who hurt him, was it a deeply-ingrained sense of justice that he was all of a sudden, inexplicably discovering, or was it something else? Was it normal that a flash of dejection in those teal eyes was all it took, all that was needed … to hate every single one of those memories that were still somehow messing with Hitsugaya's head?

_I wish I had met you earlier, no matter what this could've meant for us, I wish I had been there to give you at least a promise for a better future… _A promise would've been enough. It would've meant enough… And now? Now all Ichigo could do was promise again, just silently, secretly, and as much to Toushiro, as to himself... To be there for the boy, always, every time, to care, and support, and drag the young artists out of his smoke-stained bed when he had to, but to do it nonetheless. To do what he could, to push, and tug and yank when it was necessary … Because the kid did deserve it. Because Hitsugaya had never got any protection, ever, from anyone, and the thought of depending willingly and completely on somebody was a foreign notion to him. A sadly, tragically unfathomable idea…

"Shower." The carrot-top repeated gently and then after a short minute of shuffling with the wardrobe, pulled out a towel and pressed it in his lover's arms, proceeding to then guide Hitsugaya out in the corridor and then toward the bathroom that he remembered from having passed by on his way to the teen's room. With one tentative push, he distributed his boyfriend in the right place and closed the door behind the pajamas-clad figure, before turning around on his heel with the naïve idea to go back in that smoke-filled hell and try and find some kind of sketches or drafts that he could have the smaller male bring to Kyouraku. It took him less than half a minute to reconsider, though, and he paused, frowning in slight confusion as he quietly spun right around till he was once more facing the bathroom. No sound of running water came, no signs of life, movement or anything else whatsoever. So with one very loud sigh (or could it be a growl?), he yanked the door open, not surprised at all when he found Hitsugaya sitting on the lowered toilet seat, knees drawn to his chest and head resting against them as he quietly dozed off.

"TOUSHIRO!"

Jumping startled, the boy nearly fell on the floor, somehow managing to keep himself stable long enough to give the carrot-top a sleepy, disoriented look.

"I'm going, I'm going…"

* * *

><p>It took him about a minute to find the switch and when he finally did, he was not surprised in the slightest to discover that even with the lights on, Toushiro's room still looked strangely dim. The illumination that was seeping through the window was somewhat weak, greying around the edges like healing skin, and so Ichigo didn't find it odd that he had missed what seemed to be the most striking feature of this little sanctuary upon his first entry.<p>

The walls were painted.

And 'painted' didn't even _begin_ to describe what had been done to the once immaculate white surfaces.

Craning his neck so he could see better, Ichigo slowly made his way to the center of the floor and tried to engulf in one gulp the whole of the picture that this small, moody cubicle of a room was displaying so haughtily to him. The ceiling was pitch-black, deep and endless, and frighteningly secluded, like an ancient chasm beneath the warmth of the earth, the thickness of the ominous colour being marred by only a few dozen specks of white that turned the glumness of the creation in a gentle night sky. The black then dripped down the walls, reaching lower and consuming even more of every ray of potential light that could invade the place, till something else penetrated the nocturnal darkness, strikingly shocking in its pure, pristine white nuance. Two large, magnificent wings, shimmering with the faintest touch of silver, were stretching from somewhere beneath the man's feet, beyond what the walls could express, beyond where the imagination ended, and caressed the place and the viewer with their almost palpably quivering feathers. The complexity of the image was _incredible_. Every string, every quill, barb and curve, it was all drawn with mesmerizing precision, creating a sense of thickness and downy softness that literally made the man's fingers itch to touch. It was a simple, yet incredible picture. Two wings, unblemished and beautiful like the ones of an angel, surrounded by a mix of navy blue and lilac that was sweeter, milder, calmer than the deserted and lonely sky above. Two wings that had no beginning and no source, reaching similarly to fragile arms and aiming to embrace in their warmth the person who had had the fluke to enter. Two wings, two extensions of something unreal and celestial, two simple instruments from the world of magic that travelled up opposite walls and almost brushed against the sky above them… That was it.

And it stole Ichigo's breath away.

It took him another minute or so to collect himself and then he shook his head and turned around, facing once again the meager arsenal of furniture that was scattered heedlessly around the room. Everything seemed so… _neglected_. In comparison to the care that had obviously been put in painting the walls, the upholstering was completely disregarded, overlooked as something unnecessary and unimportant, and not in the way that teenagers refused to clean up their bedrooms, but just… just some kind of a riot against society. Against what was traditionally accepted and what was stigmatized as _wrong_. It was as though this place itself was scoffing at the world, sneering softly with the echo of its owner's voice: _who are _you_ to tell me what to do? What have you given me to be allowed to judge? What the hell do you care if I bury myself and decay like a fucking corpse, what would it matter?_

…And, yes, Toushiro could lie about many things - his thoughts, his feelings, the extent and cause of each and every one of his doubts and worries – but if there was one thing that he could not conceal, it was the fact that deep inside, beneath the hard, _shrewish_ surface that he manifested before the world's half-blind gaze, he was an artist. Someone who destroyed, but also someone who created and designed, without even being able to estimate the true value of their works. A person who could build a whole city from scrap, only to let it burn down to ashes when it didn't live up to his expectations…

…And there was no painter in the entire world who didn't keep draft works at an arm's distance, projects that strained from the confines of some dark drawer, begging for the benevolence of their cruel master; possibly some half-fulfilled ideas that even in their semi-completed state could give quite the insight on what their maker was truly capable of. Which was exactly what the carrot-top needed: examples of what Hitsugaya could do.

In normal circumstances, Ichigo would've never even _thought_ about invading someone else's privacy by going through their things. It was something that he had had the misfortune to experience in previous relationships, sublime traces of jealousy that hadn't caught his attention at first, but had later escalated into constant suspicion and lack of trust towards everything and everyone. He didn't want to appear that way – possessive, inconsiderate, intrusive – and more so with someone like Toushiro, who all but expected to be jumped at for doing something wrong. This was not your ordinary case, however… And you didn't really have to be a genius to figure out that with Hitsugaya's self-sabotaging tendencies, the boy would simply claim he possessed no works on paper if the carrot-top so much as asked. _God, why do you have to be so difficult…? _There honestly wasn't any time to argue with a more awake, bristling version of his boyfriend, so taking the short cut and achieving the same results seemed about right… right?

_He isn't going to take much longer in that shower, Ichigo, get moving._

With a weary little sigh, the carrot-top stepped towards the nearest piece of furniture and reluctantly began his task. There weren't all that many places to look, not with the way Hitsugaya lived – which could be described as much more of a camping-style existence than anything else – and it definitely appeared as though the boy held no fears that someone could rummage through his belongings. Everything was a mess; no order, no system, just things thrown in big piles here and there. It looked almost as though Toushiro wasn't even planning to stay long – a fact that now seemed ridiculous, considering how much time the kid had already spent under the same roof as his cousin. _Although_… Although after what he'd seen of the boy recently, the things that he had heard and witnessed from the supposedly emotion-devoid white-haired teenager, it wouldn't come as such a big surprise to him if along other things, Hitsugaya was also somehow self-conscious about the possibility of earning himself another unexpected eviction… this time from Hinamori.

A couple of minutes later, the carrot-top finally pulled out a rather thick suitcase from underneath his boyfriend's bed, the slightly worn black surface, covered haphazardously with random colourful stickers, sort of reminding Ichigo of the treasure box he used to keep as a kid. There were no real locks or codes to get in the way (except the very much useless 'CURIOUS PEOPLE DIE' written on the lid with a neon marker) so after a moment of hesitation, the model adjusted himself on the mattress and opened the thing.

"Bingo." He breathed, pulling out a rather thick stack of A1 and A2 sheets of art paper. Most of it was graffiti sketches, drawn with a pencil and occasionally finished with a few touches of colour, some appeared as only half-developed concepts that had apparently grown boring to their maker, but there were also a few completed works that made the carrot-top pause.

The first one looked like a close-up view on a flying plane. The string of torn clouds that was obscuring the body of the slick machine was swimming across the front in semi-transparent shades of grey and white, creating an overall sense of feebleness and movement. The little round windows were mostly dark, the people behind them hidden away from the virgin rays of the sun and curled into their pathetic little realms even when the ground, with its solid and ineluctable rules was left far beneath. Only one sign of life could be spotted in the picture: a single, faceless hand, plastered to one of last few circular glass surfaces and resting there neatly, with fanned out fingers and some kind of almost melancholic curiosity that made the carrot-top bite the side of his mouth.

The second painting was darker, drowned under tons of murky shades that seemed to float closer and closer to black. The style of drawing was different, too, purposefully smudgy as though to create an impression that the viewer was surveying the scene through a steamed window. Ichigo could see the outlining of a narrow street, a staircase, a door that was slightly opened… and then a figure next to that door. It was hard to make out much about that figure, seeing as most of it had already sunk inside the obscure depths of the building, but there was still a hand sticking out, small and delicate looking, clad in a black fingerless glove, it was trailing with almost tangible desperation across the colourless wall beside it. As though the owner of said limb didn't want to go. As though the world beyond that threshold was equality to perdition…

Above the obscure entrance there rested just one word, one slick, glowing name: '_Nocturnal_'.

Ichigo's fingers brushed against the edges of the next picture, his brows forming a tiny scowl as he surveyed the clarity of the image. He was beginning to see the pattern, as slight as it was, and the realization that he was looking through some kind of a series had him shaking his head a little. Two palms, cupped together in the very center of the painting, were supporting the limp, lifeless body of a small white bird. The slightly ruffled, snow-like down of the songster, its tiny beak, motionless wings and curled little legs, it all created a kind of unreachable, inmost sense of fatality that the model couldn't quite comprehend. One of the hands that were holding the dead creature was beautifully tattooed, portraying a pattern of intricate swirls and knots that resembled a black web of lianas and thorny creeping plants. The background, as unimportant as it was probably meant to be, was filled out with torn olive-green nuances; with colours that vibrated with the ancient firmness of the earth itself. Those palms, though… The way the diminutive fingertips were curled weakly, fatigue, and shock, and immense agony radiating in tides from the dry surface of the paper... It made the carrot-top's stomach roll with emotion.

The last picture was probably the simplest one, as it presented only one specific thing in an environment that was completely isolated from the world…

A hospital bed. A sterile, white, hollow room, devoid of sound, devoid of sight, devoid of anything that could be considered even remotely human. The point of view was twisted so that the one observing was situated somewhere behind where the supposed patient was meant to be, hardly able to make out the face of the person that was lying still on the starchy mattress, propped on an even stiffer pillow, staring with empty eyes at the empty wall. The white fist, curled against the sheets spoke volumes and at the same time… nothing at all. As though Death itself was resting there, awaiting someone else's arrival…

Separating the four pictures from the pile, Ichigo allowed himself just a minute longer to go through the rest of the suitcase… There was a lot of junk there, balled up paper, unwashed brushes, charcoal pencils, carbon pencils, double ended pencils, _broken_ pencils, an unused sharpener, crumbling erasers, clean paper, paint of all kinds and basically a whole lot of other stuff that could spike the curiosity of every child. Beneath all that, shoved at the very bottom of the makeshift container, the carrot-top found a transparent envelop, consisting of two stacks of photos, each separated from the other with its own personal rubber band. At this point, he was too far gone to remember that what he was doing was in fact unacceptable; his mind, his usually clear judgment, his _reason_, it was obliterated by the gnawing need to see _more_…

…and so he pulled out the two memory bundles, randomly plucking one of them and lifting it to his eye-level.

The older pictures actually made Ichigo chuckle, because with Toushiro's hair significantly shorter and the general air of childhood still radiating from the boy's whole being, the prematurely grumpy, I-just-swallowed-a-lemon look seemed absurd. In most of the photos the teen was either trying to get away from the camera, glaring, smoking or just attempting to cover himself with something in spite of the 'cameraman''s best intentions. _Tch… Typical. _The older images featured a less shy version of Hitsugaya, preferably equipped with either a cigarette, a glass/bottle of alcohol, or both. This Toushiro was much closer to the one the carrot-top had grown to known, not only in terms of appearance, but also judged by the overly-daring behavior that he seemed to be displaying in about every single shot that had been taken of him. For the first time since he had met the boy, Ichigo was presented with an _actual_ glimpse of what the teen's life had looked like before… And after the first few seconds of genuine amusement, he started feeling slightly uneasy… to say the least.

Toushiro, drunk out of his mind, in the middle a rather crowded party, jumping to the beat of some music with a plastic cup in his right hand and a lit cigarette in the other. Toushiro, drunk beyond recognition, again on a party, standing on a table and seemingly kicking everything off it with a languid, oddly pleased inebriated smile on his face. Toushiro, sitting in a circle of people, between a red-headed male and a tall, startlingly endowed strawberry blond girl, trying to cover his eyes as said girl displayed a very inappropriate interaction between a hookah hose and her mouth. Toushiro, shot from afar at what looked like a New Year's celebration, sitting in some guy's lap and quite demonstratively thrusting his tongue in the other one's mouth while his partner squeezed his jeans-clad ass and enjoyed the feeling of the smaller male's polished nails, scraping against his cheek…

…Swallowing with difficulty, Ichigo quickly finished the stack and moved to the other one, surprised to find a small piece of paper tucked underneath the elastic band. There were just a couple of words scribbled down on the note (and not in Hitsugaya's quite memorably messy handwriting, either) but they made the man frown in apprehension even before he had looked at what those pictures represented:

_Little Forget-Me-Nots._

And then hell began.

It was obvious that Toushiro had been a favourite victim to follow around for the entire paparazzi folk. The journalists had probably sniffed out quite quickly that the boy was like a golden mine, belching forth all kinds of dirt that could later on be used for blackmailing his father for power and money, and now that Ichigo had the chance to see this first-hand, he felt slightly sick. Most of the photos were blurry and low-quality ones, but with Hitsugaya's snowy tresses and exceptionally low stature, it wasn't hard to tell it was him in the picture, of all people… And, the carrot-top scoffed mentally, that was yet another plus in the media's list of reasons to go after the teen… After all, how many white-haired people were there in Karakura, let alone ones that were worth going after?

…At least two or three images featured the boy, sleeping on some park bench or bus station, probably having got too drunk after some event to reach his house in one piece, or even call somebody to pick him up. There was a good series of shots from before some club, the first one of which showing Toushiro puking his guts out in front of the disco, while Hinamori held his spiky hair out of the way the best way that she could, patiently rubbing his back to ease the discomfort that he was surely going through. The second displayed the same endowed strawberry blond from the hookah circle, this time clad in something that looked like a chauffeur uniform, striding angrily towards whoever was taking the pictures to possibly inflict some kind of damage on them. A hand, trying to cover the lens, then another such hand-marred photo, but with Hitsugaya still clearly on the verge of collapse in the background, the quality of the image didn't matter all that much… It was the filth that counted. And as Ichigo continued leafing through the photos, he discovered that the quality of said filth could truly escalate to unexpected highs…

A long, torturously vivid consecution of trial-related pictures followed the underage-drinking ones. The viewer could see the different sides in the case, walking out, walking in, and then Toushiro… looking like a moving corpse… Another nicely caught moment, in which the boy's father, the mayor, was stuffing his son into a limo without so much as a glare at the practically lifeless kid. Then some shots at Sakai, his family, his wife… _God, enough!_

Putting everything back where he found it, Ichigo shoved the suitcase under the bed and picked up the paintings he had separated from the rest, making his way out of the room… only to nearly walk straight into a freshly-showered, half-naked Toushiro, with a towel around his thin waist.

"What-… What are you doing?" Hitsugaya's eyes fell on the pictures that the carrot-top was holding, thin white brows knitting together in momentary confusion. "What are you doing with that?"

"It'd be good if you got some kind of a folder to put those in before we go. You need to take something to Kyouraku, you know. And _don't_ touch," Ichigo pulled his hand back abruptly, when the boy reached for his own works, the barren deadpan the model was speaking in making Toushiro's gaze snap up in unpleasant surprise. "Wet fingers."

The boy breathed out slowly, gimlet teal eyes staring up in something akin to frustrated bewilderment at the orange-haired man as he fought to comprehend something, to build up the answer to the question that was very nicely ingrained in the light quiver of those pale lips, the tremble of his fingers, the slump of his small shoulders. His little hand visibly tightened around the edge of the towel that was hanging around his hips, and the taller male realized that just like their first morning as lovers, the boy was feeling painfully vulnerable again; too exposed, too easy to harm… They were standing like fools there, on the threshold of Toushiro's room, and Ichigo knew he needed to move, he needed to get out and sort through what he had just seen, and he needed his head _clear_, not clouded by the teen's overwhelming, impossibly shrewd turquoise orbs…

…And yet, he just couldn't move. He was frozen on spot, caught like a deer in the headlights, caged between two opposite emotions, and selfishly unwilling to comprehend that with his own behavior, he was making Hitsugaya feel even worse... The sight of the teen, nearly naked and completely lost as to what was happening, could've been beautiful had it not been frightening Ichigo with the deafening and blinding effect it had on him… Moist, snowy lock were hanging limply, dripping with water onto the narrow little shoulders, and pale flesh was cooling down slowly, still flushed a faint pink after the hot shower… All as though to bring out even more strikingly that defenseless and uncertain look on the Toushiro's face that the carrot-top just couldn't handle. _Dammit, stop, _stop _staring at me like that…_

"O-oh… You saw my-" Toushiro began in a broken whisper, realization seeping into his eyes with painful certainty, and he bit his lower lip, averting his gaze. "I-I guess that's fair…"

No anger.

The acceptance that came with those words, the tone of a convict, already aware of his upcoming death sentence, it was all too much. The soft colour that had dusted across the boy's flesh instantly faded away, his skin adopting that strangely vivid, sickly greyish shade for a second time the past couple of days, and Ichigo felt his heart drop at the sight. In one single second, as he watched his lover almost literally sink into the ground with shame, he felt all the previous signs of hurt leave his system. No, no, it wasn't… It wasn't fair. _It isn't fucking fair… _

"I shouldn't have pried." He muttered softly, regretfully, and when Toushiro didn't look up to meet his eyes, he tucked a knuckle under the teen's chin and guided it up till the boy had no choice but to do just that. "…Why did you keep them?"

"The Forget-me-nots?" the teen uttered incredulously, a baneful smile twisting his lips for a second. "My father sent them to me a month or so after he kicked me out. All the stuff he had to pay for to save his reputation. He kept mine intact as well, for the longest time, too… So I guess I owe him one. That's why I didn't throw them away."

Taking a second to survey the person in front of him, Ichigo ventured to remain silent, to let the moment slip away without a word, the way he rarely did. The way Toushiro rarely allowed him to do. And as he bent down afterwards, capturing the boy's mouth in the sweetest, gentlest, most _innocent_ kiss they had ever shared, he felt his lover shiver deliciously, relaxing completely against the tentative treatment. Hitsugaya had never let it to be like this before, no tongues, no greed, no desire… it had always been about passion and need, and all those things that they already shared. But it was necessary now… it was important to give this one lip-lock a different meaning. And so when they separated, there was nothing left untold or unfinished between them; just the content, the certainty that things were going to be alright.

"You don't owe anything to that man." Ichigo whispered, diving just one more time to deliver a peck to Toushiro's awaiting mouth. "Now get dressed, I'll wait for you in the kitchen."

* * *

><p>Hitsugaya was only ten minutes late when his lover dropped him off in front of the needed café. He figured he was going to be even more late, because instead of heading straight for the front door like he should've, he just stood there, a black A1 folder clutched to his chest, and stared.<p>

He didn't want to get in.

Of course, there was no chance in hell he was going to admit that to anyone, let alone to Ichigo, because he was Hitsugaya Toushiro after all, he-… he-… _What_?

…-wanted to turn tail and run, because he couldn't handle letting a certain carrot-top down?

The last few days hadn't exactly won him many brownie points with his erstwhile (and somewhat oblivious) stalker, and although he wanted to tell himself that this was alright, that what Toushiro had done didn't mean anything now, he just couldn't. Being self-conscious about so many things had never been his forte - he honestly had no idea how to deal with that and so far in his life, it hadn't really been such a problem – but with a person like Kurosaki, the freaking role model of everything good, and prince-y, and perfect, he literally felt like the evil witch that had somehow got her hands on the goodie-two-shoes character.

He had never wanted it, he had never asked for such a relationship…

…He had never wanted Ichigo to see his room. The model probably didn't have the slightest idea as to what and how the place had ended up looking like this. Only Hinamori had been there, only she had seen… How he had locked himself up in his new room the moment she had taken him in, how he had hardly slept, eaten, or left his new cave, how he had buried himself in the stench of paint and cigarettes, and alcohol till it had seeped into his very bones… He didn't know why he had drawn what he had drawn… Didn't know what it really meant… Was it a fallen angel, maybe? Was it the cry of some ancient creature that was reaching for the moon's embrace? It could be everything.

But it was probably just one thing that his subconscious already recognized. He just needed his mind to let him grasp it, too.

"You gonna get in or what?"

The voice made Toushiro jump and splutter, turning around to face the familiar, languid smile of his boyfriend's dark-haired friend in one of the worst and most embarrassing moments in his life.

"I went out to look for you, because I thought you might've got lost. Should've figured Ichigo would drop you off." Kyouraku noticed with a shrug, arching an amused brow when Toushiro 's cheeks heated in the very unpleasant, odious way that suited girls far more than Toushiro's 'calloused' sex.

"Sorry for being late." The boy muttered, annoyed in earnest when he realized that his throat was unnaturally dry. "I-"

"-Didn't want to come?"

"You have to understand… I'm still not sure how much of this has to do with Ichigo." The teen admitted honestly, grimacing slightly when the words left his mouth. _God_, he sounded pathetic…

But either Kyouraku was unaware of that factor, or just didn't care, because he merely chuckled soundlessly and proceeded to answer in that light, airy way in which only the wisest people could speak:

"None. I knew you weren't dating him the moment you made that comment about him being a sexy piggy bank." The man winked teasingly and then shook his head at the boy's sour expression. "Relax, it was funny. I was planning to contact you right after the party, but I got caught up and well… Before you know it, Ichigo was complaining that you were scared to be seen with him in broad daylight. Oh, how things turn when you least except them!"

"He was-… He was _complaining_ about that?" Toushiro exclaimed indignantly, all signs of uneasiness forgotten as he tried to resist kicking the nearest object with all his might (said nearest object just so happening to be a sleeping stray dog with the size of a mutated wolf). "That's not fair! I do not complain about him stalking me, do I?"

The man looked loss for a moment, but then that benevolent little smirk came up on the surface again and he nodded his head in understanding.

"You mean the ads."

"I _do_ mean the ads! Do you know I had to give up on my favourite brand of cigarettes because of that shit?"

Laughing a little at the bristling boy, Kyouraku gestured towards the café's entrance.

"Let's get inside and you can tell me all about that."

Letting the imaginary hackles lower down, Toushiro nodded his head with a frown and allowed himself to be led inside the building, surprised to find that it was just an average eating-house: nothing snobbish, nothing special. As the older male was asking for a table, the boy let his eyes travel absently across the place. A couple of customers lifted their gazes from what they were eating or drinking – a natural reaction when the front door opened with that annoying little jingle – and Hitsugaya wouldn't have given it much of a thought, had those people not looked away with suspicious haste.

_What the-_

An elderly couple at the end of the room squinted in his direction and then the woman gasped and quickly started to whisper something to her husband, glancing at the boy in that very awkward, very obvious way that had always made Toushiro want to gag. The boy's brow twitched at the lady's, irritation slowly making its way to the surface as he tried to remember if there was any reason that could explain why he was now being gaped at as though he had grown several extra pairs of arms.

…And then he saw it.

…On the cover of some ignorant man's newspaper.

…His own fucking face, smooching the living daylights out of one Ichigo Kurosaki, in the middle of an amusement park, and with the 'on duty' cigarette poised awkwardly between his nail-polished fingers…

_You have got to be kiddin' me… _

Without so much as low growl, the boy strode straight towards the ignorant man with the newspaper and snatched the thing from the guy's grasp, unmoved by the small yelp that naturally followed the theft.

"Hey-"

"Sorry, I need that." Hitsugaya snapped unregretfully, stuffing a hand in his pocket and then letting out a random amount of change fall on the table before the stranger. "It's an emergency."

And with that, he turned straight to the page denoted on the cover, staring with wide eyes at the article that unraveled in front of him in its startling beauty of two _whole_ fucking pages.

_Oh, no, please, no, nononono…._

He had a tough time understanding exactly what was written, but words and phrases such as _'gold digger'_, _'another older rich man in the list'_, '_disowned by his family_' and '_not getting it with a married man this time_' kindda stood out to him with almost severing clarity. Then there was a long revision of his previous offences, the case with Sakai and a whole lot of other things, all of them twisted somehow to recreate little horror stories that literally made everything swim before Toushiro's eyes. The amount of pictures across the whole article was astounding; snippets and chunks from about every shameful event that had occurred in the boy's life… and while all of these photos were new to this town, it was the amount ones that _Hitsugaya himself_ had never seen that startled him.

"Oh God…" he whispered, turning around just in time to see Kyouraku approach him with a sincerely concerned expression of his face.

"You okay?"

"I need to go." The boy said suddenly, surprised by the firmness in his own voice as he thrust his enormous folder in the man's arms. "I'm sorry."

And with that, he had stormed out of the café, his gaze still glued on the newspaper in his hand as he pressed his mobile phone to his ear.

"Matsumoto, I need a ride" Pause. "To my father's office."

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: Anyone found anything?**_ **Meh, that's okay.**


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N: Well, with exams coming up in less than three weeks this is not as long as I usually make my chapters, but who knows when I'll get much time to write now. May will be crazy for me. I hope you're not disappointed, cuuuz there's one or two more chapters left and after that I'll be writing a sequel. :3 The song I'm using is a remake of a popular piece by Queen, and it is sang by Five. The name is 'We Will Rock You', of course, and the tempo and it's a little bit more... dancey style maybe in comparison to the original? XD**_

_**Have fun!**_

* * *

><p>Iridescent<p>

Chapter 6

_Buddy you're a boy  
>Make a big noise playin' in the street<br>Gonna be a big man some day  
>You got blood on your face, big disgrace<br>Kicking your can all over the place_

Hitsugaya had walked 6 blocks in order not to stand stupidly in front of the café where Kyouraku and the folk of staring people probably still resided, and yet even with the slow pace that he had gone at, the stop that he had made at the local cigarette shop and the nearly twenty minutes that it had taken him to get here, he was still forced to wait for Matsumoto's arrival. That girl was unfixable. You'd think after so much time of working for his father, some of his meticulous punctuality would rub off on her and make her come on time at least every once in a while, but no such luck. Rangiku remained as loyal to her character as an old dog to its first rubber toy, disregarding a lot of orders, transporting ungodly amounts of alcohol and tobacco in the limo she didn't even own and basically representing the worst example for a driver that could possibly exist. The only reason why Hitsugaya senior hadn't fired her yet was because she had the inborn ability to transport someone from point A to point B in a nearly negative amount of time. In extreme situations, Matsumoto was indeed the best person to turn to… But if you didn't make the urgency of the case clear enough to her upon calling, there was the likely chance that you would be left standing like an idiot for the better part of the next half an hour…

And waiting always caused the stupidest of thoughts, the Toushiro decided, currently sitting on the edge of the sidewalk with a smoking cigarette in one hand and his cell phone in his other, _the stupidest _and_most fucked up_ thoughts you could ever imagine_._

…Because if he had to be honest with himself, the boy had no idea what to do now. His first impulse had been to call Ichigo right away and explain things while the man was still willing to listen, but after a few moments of deliberating, that initial intention had become a little bit less alluring. What if his orange-haired boyfriend was still very blissfully unaware of what was published in the press? Was delivering such news the best of ideas, especially via a phone? And if the model had just discovered the article, wasn't it better to wait till any potential anger had subdued and the carrot-top was given the opportunity to decide for himself if this was a conversation he wanted to have or not?

…Or maybe procrastinating was the wrong approach to things – maybe if Toushiro didn't call right away, he would be accused of lying or hiding information – something that he wasn't sure how he would be able to rebuke later, especially since he couldn't help it but feel like absolute trash at the moment… Like an absolute _fucking_ trash and a life-wrecker. Ichigo's personal life-wrecker.

_Shit…_

Hitting his forehead with the heavy mobile phone a couple of times, Toushiro kept repeating the curse under his breath, his eyes tightly closed in some quite pathetic attempt to block out the outside world.

It wasn't supposed to happen like this. He hadn't-… He hadn't done anything wrong this time… He had tried, he had _really_ tried to stay out of trouble, to remain unnoticeable and preserve his and Ichigo's privacy… So why was the past coming back to bite him in the ass again? Hadn't he paid enough for his little adventures to deserve a break from this whole gossip mess that always seemed to follow him around like a chronic disease with no cure and no way to alleviate the symptoms?

_Guess again, Toushiro. Guess again._

The sharp shriek of a claxon pierced through the air and the boy's head shot up just as a long, shiny limo slowed down to a smooth stop in front of him. Remaining still for a second to make sure that the vehicle was indeed waiting for him, Hitsugaya chucked the nearly burnt cigarette butt to the side with his thumb and index finger and rose to his feet, dusting himself off in the process. His knees seemed oddly weak, _unsteady _despite the determination that was boiling inside his chest, and as he forced himself to make a step forward, towards the luxurious machine that had once been his most preferred means of transportation, a dull, claustrophobic feeling wrapped its giant arms around his torso, suffocating him like an overly warm blanket. For a moment he just stood there, paralyzed, staving off the decision to go or stay as the trickle of people behind him continued moving, carried on, sadly or gleefully, or angrily, or hopefully, with life, making him all the more aware of how small and insignificant his doubts and misery really were to the world. Someone opened the paper this morning, glanced at the articles and told himself – I'm glad my son is not like this, I'm glad I'm not this boy's parent and I didn't have to watch him crumble to nothing, day after day, after day, for 18 damned years…

Someone saw a kid with a flashy white hair, sitting on the cold end of the sidewalk with a lost look on his face and a smoking cigarette in his hand, and snorted out an offence under their breath, executing a punishment that seemed to be long due...

Somewhere, at this very moment, Ichigo was probably staring in shock at the badly printed black-and-white photos, his fingers digging in his orange shock of hair in half-suppressed agitation as his eyes ran over the neat lines of words that seemed oh-so-perfectly designed to decry and anathemize...

Someone, somewhere, right now.

Hitsugaya knew he couldn't fix this. He had neither the power, nor the money to dare hope that he would come out of this duel as the winner. Yet the glove had been thrown, the opponent had lunged and the first blood had been spilt. Now he had no choice but to charge himself, to attack with all the strength he had left, or he was going to be nothing but a coward, nothing but the loser, who stepped back and surrendered without even trying…

Toushiro might've been a lot of things, but he wasn't a coward. He knew what it meant to sacrifice for someone else. He knew how to stand his ground when he had to and he knew how to step back when the well-being of someone who mattered was at stake.

He had no right to be scared now.

He needed answers.

"Fuck it all…" he muttered wearily, then slipped his mobile phone back into his pocket, opened the car's door and slid gracefully into the seat beside the driver. "I should've done this a long time ago."

* * *

><p>Loyal to her reputation, Matsumoto managed to drive him to the city hall in record time, chirping about all kinds of things during the ride and pestering him about 'boyfriend details' till he was downright whimpering at her to let it go and stop sticking her nose in his private matters. For some reason his whining, grumbling and the infinite amount of nicotine smoke he was producing inside the limo seemed to amuse the woman to no end and therefore she felt in no way obliged to stop tormenting him. Instead, as though it wasn't enough that she was prying into the boy's business, the topics she was picking continued getting more and more disturbing… And by the time they were pulling up in front of the proud edifice that was their destination, Toushiro had been reduced to a silent, uncooperative piece of rock, the faint tint of pink on his cheeks the only indication that he was still alive and breathing.<p>

At that point, Matsumoto deemed her work accomplished.

Several minutes later, Hitsugaya was standing awkwardly in front of the slick marble steps of the city hall, his heart palpitating oddly in the pit of his abdomen as he stared up at the building in front of him and tried to fight down the heavy sense of nausea that was brewing inside his stomach. His driver (or maybe ex-driver was more accurate?) had parked a few meters away from him, picking up from afar with that weird woman's intuition that he needed a short while to himself. _A short while to remember what you're here for, eh? _Toushiro bit the inside of his cheek and twisted his gaze to look at the glowing cigarette that was poised gracefully between his index and middle finger. For a second he just stood like that, watching in silence as the paper around the lit end of the poisonous stick smouldered languidly and the dull flame crawled towards his fingers; then the sight became boring and he threw the fag to the ground, crushing it with his foot. _Right. _The feeling of injustice and hurt, the anger that he had been bottling up for years was simmering under its lid, pressing to burst free and fight, scream, raze whatever stood in the way… But he just wasn't sure that if he let it out, he would be able to control himself. _Control… Control?_ The boy wanted to snort. Such a funny word. He, of all people, had to know how much weight, and how much _pain_ and disappointment could derive for the meaning of that one single word… Because he had been pushed around, manipulated and lied to for the better part of his existence – by his parents, his married lover, the press – and it was maddening how little he had done to change things…

How little he had done to fight it, instead of saying 'enough' while things still hadn't spun out of _his control_.

_Enough_.

It wasn't so hard, was it?

And then he was running up the staircase, sprinting towards the entrance as though there was someone chasing him, and the only sound that he could hear was the pounding of the blood in his own ears. The next two minutes or so were a bit of a blur. He remembered a couple of guards getting in his way and trying to stop him, but without slowing down even for a trice, he had slipped right pass them and through the arch of the metal detector, yelling at them that he needed to see his father. The sound of the last word seemed to make everybody freeze in a momentary shock, and no one dared to move as Toushiro launched up the next flight of steps, towards the one office that he knew like the back of his hand. Someone shouted after him that 'Mr. Hitsugaya' was no accepting visitors at the moment, but the boy brushed the warning aside and just sped up, pushing the familiar oak door at the end of the corridor so hard, its edge hit the wall beside it with a loud bang.

The sight that he was met with nearly made him retch.

"Oh, God…" he managed through clenched teeth, eyes narrowing in revulsion as a blond woman around her twenties (the secretary, no doubt, his dad loved clichés) rose from where she had been kneeling on the floor just a second ago and retracted her fingers from the belt of one Hitsugaya Masashi, the supposedly honorable mayor of Karakura. "At least make the effort to lock the door before you-… This is _disgusting_."

The sound of the taller male's dry laughter made Toushiro's brow twitch, his stomach twisting unpleasantly as his father pushed himself away from where he had been leaning back against the front of his paper-covered desk and helpfully combed his fingers through the fair-haired girl's messy tresses. The gesture of phony affection made the boy's jaw clench unpleasantly and he had to take a couple of deep breaths through his nose to contain himself from producing a series of exaggerated gag noises. It was no secret to the teen that his father frequently supported exceptionally gorgeous and exceptionally stupid ladies as his mistresses. This was by far not the first time when the young Hitsugaya had stumbled upon such a distressing scene, and yet even with all the unpleasant experiences jammed without order at the back of his head, the bluntness of the act and the lack of the simplest attempt to lie about what was happening always seemed to startle the boy much more than the crime itself. Masashi never cared who he was hurting. As long as the escapades he was engaging himself in remained a secret to the press and his name was as clean as freshly fallen snow, it didn't really matter who else knew. Whether it was his son. His staff. Or even his wife…

"Perfect timing as always, Toushiro." Hitsugaya senior stated flatly before reaching to fix his wrinkled collar and do up the couple of top buttons that his secretary had cared to open. His expression said it all – professional attire was such a bother… So hard to put on, so hard to take off… Really, how very unpleasant…

The woman beside the mayor was still not trying to move away and her presence was slowly starting to get on Toushiro's nerves. She looked oddly like a Barbie-doll: perfectly balanced, delicate bone structure, pouty cherry lips and an admittedly beautiful blond hair that framed an equally beautiful, albeit adequately lost, porcelain face. _Heh… _In his mind, she immediately became an infantile creature, plucked from the far, far away fairytale lands that bred endless numbers of imbecile secretaries, and he felt a little bad for blaming her for the fact that her brain was still struggling to understand what was required of her upon one such unexpected disturbance. It was sad, really, nothing to hold over her head… And so, Toushiro mercifully decided to help.

"Get the hell out of here." he spat out and the viciousness in his voice made the poor thing jump in shock. Casting a desperate glance at Masashi's direction, she let out a small whimper upon discovering that he had no plants to rush to her aid, and then deftly fled the room, slamming the door shut behind her in unhidden indignation.

"So, Shiro…" the politician began a little too amiably, the side of his mouth pulling up in something like a smirk as he reached to take a half-empty bottle of water from his desk and then held it absently in his hands. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

The anger and hostility that he had been trying to keep aflame for this very moment, swell then, and throbbed, pressing against his lungs and making him choke on his next words like a child that was supposed to stand in front of an audience and perform for the first time in his life. His words came out as a pathetic little whisper:

"You know well enough why I'm here."

Masashi arched a brow and let out a small quizzical 'mm?' before lifting the bottle of water to his lips and taking a couple of long gulps. When he was finished, he just lowered the plastic container again and screwed it close, his index finger remaining on top of the lid to tap thoughtfully on the slightly indented center.

"I'm afraid I'll have to say no to that one." The man stated finally. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Toushiro could almost hear the air around him crackle in protest as his whole body tensed and heated up, his skin rippling unnaturally as a wave of red-hot hatred shot through the pale flesh and concentrated in a blazing ball in the core of his chest. He wasn't sure whether his face had flushed a feverish pink or paled to that morbid grey hue instead, but either seemed possible, now that he knew how this conversation was going to develop…

In other words - in all the wrong directions.

"You _liar_!" the accusation came out much louder than Toushiro had expected, bursting from his chest like a fresh, reopened wound that was drowning him in pain and blood. "Do you think I'm really _that_ stupid? That I don't know whenever someone snaps a shot of me, they come first thing to _you_, hoping that you will pay them a fortune to shut their mouths?"

"Toushiro," Masashi muttered coldly. "Lower your voice."

"I will _not _lower my voice!" The boy spat out in fury, taking a couple of steps forward as the opaque veil of rage gnawed greedily at the edges of his vision. "I will now bow my head, _yet again_, because you have said so! I want to know what I did to deserve this! I want to know why-… Why m-my father," Toushiro's face contorted into a grimace against his will, and his voice shattered, his head turning strangely light for a moment as he closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe steadily. "-Would do something like that to me…"

A thick, thick silence was all that met his ears. And it seemed worse than any answer that could leave the politician's mouth, because words were always so exaggerated, so twisted and unreal, and even the worst kind of statement could be built on the ground of a much weaker emotion. But silence? Silence spoke so very eloquently; it dug so deeply and so cruelly, because it meant everything and nothing altogether. It meant an 'I have never loved you' as much as it meant disdain, listlessness and ennui... And nothing needed to be dressed up in mellifluous or bitter phrases and sentences, nothing needed to be expressed through the limited sieve of the speech, because it was all there. _All_ there, every ugly and maculated fact of reality that Toushiro had never had the courage to accept to its fullest…

_Right…_

The boy's eyes fluttered open and he gazed right up at his parent, a mix of hatred and disbelief swirling behind his teal orbs as he waited still for some kind of a reaction. For something, _anything_ that would prove that Masashi understood at least a particle of the damage that he had caused, that beneath the algid demeanor, the petrous and static surface, the man felt at least a splinter of an emotion when he thought about what kind of a crime he had committed.

But there was nothing. The mayor's face was a stony façade of a perfectly built statue. No warmth reached him. No coldness could crack his ice-crusted world.

"When you made me go… When you had me leave for good and you sent me those photos… You said that was all." Toushiro insisted with quiet, barely restrained difficulty, his chest heaving with the next tide of indignation that was pushing to break through to the surface. "You said that was it, that there was nothing left. But you held back some of them, didn't you? You kept some of the worst ones, so you could have something to expose me with if the situation required it."

"You sound so surprised." The man uttered in something akin to amused wonderment and the boy felt his fingers begin to shake with the anger that was pumping through his veins. "Don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same."

"The hell I would've done something so low, you bastard!" Toushiro ground out resentfully. "We were supposed to be done with each other! This was supposed to be _it_! But you just couldn't hold back from ruining me even more, could you? When the reporter came to you with the new picture, you told them to write their article and take the material you had, too, because you couldn't be bothered to fix my mistakes anymore. And I bet it felt _good_, didn't it? Being the one to say the last word as all the scraps I've been fighting to keep, all the dignity that I have been battling to preserve, turns to nothing!"

Much to the boy's dismay, the older Hitsugaya just let out a low, weary sigh and reached to put the bottle of water back from where he had taken it, the indifference that painted his features remaining as slick as glass even as he turned his head back and allowed his eyes to swipe up and down his son's figure. There was annoyance in that gaze, and impatience of some kind, like this was all such a great waste of his time – to stand here and deal with his own child, who he had single-handedly thrown out like a dirty dog when the chance had arisen. Of course he had better thing to do. _Of course_.

"I don't think there's any need to confirm this statement, is there? We both know it's all perfectly accurate." He responded without wavering. "I have to say, though, I did not expect such a reaction from you. Not so… _emotional_, anyways, if you know what I mean."

Toushiro swallowed, retracting a step as though the last statement had somehow physically pushed him off his unsteady pillars.

Yes, yes, he knew… He knew what his father meant. Anger was due, but where was all the hurt coming from? Hadn't he learned by now what his parents were capable of when it came to preserving their image in front of the world? Hadn't he understood the low position in which he stood in their ambitious, soulless eyes? Or had all this pain always been there, just compressed, jammed into an insignificant speck at the bottom of his heart till he had forgotten how to keep it down… How to squeeze the raw spite out of it and leave the rest behind, as he pretended that there was nothing else. Nothing more…

"Why?" Toushiro managed through his teeth, shaking his head a little as though that action alone could make everything disappear. "Just tell me. I want. A reason."

"A reason?" Masashi repeated with a sudden hint of sharpness in his previously perfectly contained voice. "A reason? What, you think that after you left my house, you would no longer be connected to me? You think that you can go around, doing whatever you want, and it will not affect how I look in any way?" the first signs of malice crept inside the man's tone like a sickness and he stepped forward, slowly making his way towards his son. "I told you to stay low. I _told_ you. You were supposed to disappear, to get the hell out of my life, but what do you do? A year later you show your face in front of the whole town, with no other but the all famous Kurosaki Ichigo as your high-minded escort. Is that your idea of staying inconspicuous?"

"Why does that matter?" Toushiro ground out in frustration, recoiling involuntarily when his father advanced towards him. "What difference does it make that it's him I'm dating of all people?"

"Oh, God, Toushiro!" the laugh that ripped from the mayor's chest was like the rustle of crumbling autumn leaves: so dead, so fucking wrong. And then, before the boy could even realize what was happening, his back was pressed against the door, his father's hand squeezing his arm in a painful grip as the man caged him the way a panther traps its prey to the ground. "You think I don't know you? You're my son, my flesh and blood dammit, and that unpredictability of yours, that endless craving that you have for attention, for your _own_ spotlight, you believe it's not dangerous?" Masashi's voice was a thin, shuddering whisper against the boy's ear, and Toushiro felt himself stop breathing for a minute as the words rolled, one after the other, into his mind. "I can't control what's coming out of your mouth and with such a famous person by your side, I can't control the paparazzi flood, either. We are strong people, kid, we can both ruin the other if we play our cards right." He paused, pulling back with a vaguely victorious flicker it those steel eyes of his. "I was just the first to react."

And with that, the man turned around and made his way back to his desk, seating himself behind it with a contented sigh that felt far more like a mockery than anything else. From his place against the door, with his fists now tightly clenched, Toushiro just shook his head as his teeth found their way into his lower lip.

"You did this to have him break up with me." The boy enunciated lowly. "You did this to make him go away. To make _me_ go away."

Masashi leaned back into his chair and jerked one shoulder into a shrug.

"You've always been smart. I'm sure you understand now: there's no way I'm getting that article off the newspaper. Because I'm sure this is what you came for, isn't it?" He said evenly, before gesturing unambiguously towards the door. "Now get out. We're done."

For once, Toushiro couldn't have agreed more.

* * *

><p>"How did it go?" Matsumoto asked curiously as Toushiro slowly made his way towards her, face blank and hands stuffed in the pockets of his thin leather jacket. "Did you get your answers?"<p>

Without uttering a sound, the boy opened the door of the limo from the passenger's side and swiftly slid inside the vehicle, adjusting himself comfortably in his seat as he waited for the girl to get in. A moment later Matsumoto was settling in her own spot, a now rather vivid look of concern twisting those usually beautifully soft features as she surveyed the teen up and down.

"What happened?" she muttered carefully, reaching to place a comforting, albeit uncertain hand on his shoulder. "Whatever it is, just talk to me."

Glancing at his friend with the corner of his eye, Toushiro exhaled slowly through his nose and then slowly turned to completely face her, one leg tucked under his ass despite the tapestry of the seat that he was probably ruining with his sneakers.

"Remember my pickpocketing period from around the time when I was thirteen? When I went out in the street or rode in the public transport, going through people's things for useless little trinkets just to see if I could get away with it?" he muttered slowly, almost absently so, as his hazy jade eyes wandered off to some far away spot that no one else but he could reach. Matsumoto nodded anxiously, her brows scrunching up in a rather bewildered expression just as Toushiro's lips twisted up at the sides and he pulled something out of his jacket and waved it in front of her face.

"Well, guess _he_ forgot, cuz I just stole his mobile phone and his wallet."

* * *

><p>Hitsugaya Masashi had two cell phones: one for his endless business calls (which was the device the mayor utilized 90% of the time) and one denoted as his 'private' mobile, seeing as it was only saved for conversations with his wife, family, lovers and some of his closer friends. The small, shiny gadget that Toushiro was currently holding in his hands was definitely meant for personal communications rather than work-related ones: a convenient fact that meant there was a good chance the politician wouldn't notice something had been stolen from him till at least the middle of the afternoon. Chances were, even if the boy's father figured one of his phones and his wallet were missing, he would decide he had forgotten both at home – nothing unheard of, plus the man always had spare cash lying around in the office.<p>

And speaking of money…

Toushiro pulled out a shiny, red credit card from the leather wallet and surveyed it with a tiny, impish smirk on his face. If his father hadn't changed the code – which the teen doubted the mayor would, considering Masashi was _that_ unable to alter anything in his mundane little life – then maybe, just maybe today was going to turn into a not so bad day after all.

…And then his own phone rang and the boy froze, all vestiges of vindictive joy dripping off his face like melted snowflakes. Pulling out his own device with apprehensive slowness and looking down at the screen, Toushiro felt his face contort into a rather pained grimace, his whole body shuddering and slumping low into his seat while the stupid gadget continued blaring some obnoxious, monophonic melody all around the smoothly moving limo. _Oh, God…_ The boy's fingers around the phone tightened painfully until the customarily milky flesh turned an unpleasant, ashen white colour, the unbidden desire to just open the window and hurl the mobile out making the teen twitch in his place restlessly. He didn't think he could have this conversation right now, he really didn't think he could… He wouldn't be able to handle Ichigo's disappointment, the anger that would surely come afterwards, and then… and then who knew what would happen? What kind of s stupid thing Toushiro would say to try and make things right, and what kind of an irritating nuisance he would turn into at the end, disgusting the older male with how desperate and annoying he really was… _Oh, fuck, no…_

Beside him, Matsumoto frowned at the incredibly bothersome sound that was drilling unpleasantly in her eardrums and glanced at the boy's shrinking form in confusion.

"Aren't you going to pick up?" she asked, alternatively shifting her eyes between the road, the distressed-looking Hitsugaya and back to the urban landscape that was stretching in front of her. "The person seems pretty persistent on reaching you."

Toushiro wanted to laugh at that statement, the ticklish, humourless sensation pressing against his ribcage for a trice, only to subdue and leave him feeling rather empty, rather shaken instead. Briefly, he wondered if this was what a child felt like when he had eaten the whole cookie jar without permission – ashamed, scared, and quite aware that he would have to suffer the consequences sooner or later. Swallowing the lump that had gathered in his throat, the boy bit his lower lip and pressed the button to accept the call, slowly lifting the device to his ear and gathering all the courage he could find for what was to come.

"H-hey…" he muttered weakly, turning his head to the side to stare at his own reflection in the matted glass of the car's window. He half expected a very much deserved tide of curses to pour like poison into his ear; he was ready for the strained interrogation and the yelling, and the accusations that would surely come at some point during this conversation… Because, after all, wasn't this the normal thing to do? Wasn't an outrageous reaction the exact response that any human being would give in such a situation? The boy had tested Ichigo's patience plenty of times by now, shocking, and mortifying, and scandalizing the poor lad till it felt like they were a thread away from falling apart… Maybe it was time that the model really did make the right decision and walked away. Toushiro wouldn't really have the right to blame anyone but himself if this was what this call was going to lead to.

Guess you could never wash the past off of your hands, no matter how hard you tried, how viciously you rubbed, or how much you clawed at your own skin to get the filth out… What you did was part of you forever, and there was nothing you could do about it. Not a single thing.

"_I'm so sorry_." It came softly and so meekly from the other end of the line that Hitsugaya nearly dropped the phone. If he had been standing at this very second, he would've surely staggered backwards or tripped, or done something just as equally silly, because this was by far the last thing he had expected to hear… Straightening himself in his seat, the boy barely had the time to utter a broken little 'what?' before Ichigo's regretful, cotton-like voice was grazing against his skin again, soothing his bruised conscience and his pondering heart like nothing else ever could. "_You said you didn't want to go out in public, you tried to tell me, and I didn't listen and now this has happened and I really don't know… I really don't know what to say._"

Toushiro's throat was so tight that he literally couldn't make a sound, his free hand lifting to his face to press against the bridge of his nose as he shook his head, completely forgetting the fact that his orange-haired lover couldn't really see him at the moment. He could hear Ichigo's restless breath, scratching against the speaker every once in a while, and for some reason, for some _idiotic_ reason, the sound alone was making him feel strangely comforted. _God, what's going on with you?_

"_Just tell me you're okay._" the carrot-top's voice whispered imploringly. "_Please, just tell me you're okay, that nothing bad has happened to you, because right now I just want to kick myself for being so stupid…_"

The boy swallowed hard and removed his fingers from his face, leaning his temple against the cold window tiredly as the deep, aching longing for Ichigo's warm embrace drilled through his bones and made him shake all over. He had spoken _once_ since the beginning of the conversation, but oddly enough, he still couldn't bring himself to want to be any more eloquent. He just needed to remain quiet in his own little bubble of equilibrium for a while, captured in a world where he didn't need to be anything but mute, anything but a soundless creature, who survived only for the sake of listening to this man's voice, the sweetness of Ichigos words and the care that Hitsugaya had always needed so damn much… The affection that he had always been depraved of. _God, I'm so, I'm so fucking easy…_

"_Toushiro…"_

"I'm fine…" the boy managed, but he sounded strangely hoarse, like an ill person who was struggling against the grip of some terrible disease. "Really, I'm… I'm okay."

"_I'm sorry_."

"Don't apologize. Gods, this is not your fault…" Hitsugaya muttered ruefully. "That's all me. All my crap, coming back to chew at what's left…"

"_I don't care_." Ichigo insisted firmly. "_I want to see you._"

And at that moment, the weight that had been crushing Toushiro's chest finally let him breathe.

* * *

><p>Matsumoto Rangiku had been working for the Hitsugaya family for several years now, and out of all the members of the famous clan, till this very moment Toushiro was still the only one who she had ever truly respected and cared about. The kid was like a magnet for trouble: always involved with the wrong-est kind of people, always ending up in a mess that even his genius brain couldn't deal with, and always, <em>always<em> ready to break the rules if it meant forgetting even for one hour the house that he had to come back to every day, every night. She had seen him before he had entered the worst stage of his life, she had seen him march through that same stage with head held high, she had seen him drunk as a fish, sober, angry, spiteful, sarcastic, lonely, hurt, _weak_... She had seen the worst and the best of him, and all the other shades and possibilities the rested in between, and although the boy was indeed a pain in the ass most of the time, she couldn't help it but care for him, because deep inside, beneath the obnoxious temper and the terrible habits, and the biting sense of humour, he was a good kid. A very good, very smart, very miserable kid…

…Someone who needed _so much_ fixing and at the same time was perfect just the way he was. Life had made Toushiro the person he was today and he wasn't complaining, he wasn't engaging people with his own problems – just struggling the best way that he could, fighting a battle that he could never win. Fate had never gone easy on him, _never_. From those conceited, blindly ambitious people that were supposed to be his parents, to the journalists who never seemed to leave him alone and the terrible luck that he had with his relationships, the teen was by far one of the most luckless people Matsumoto had ever met.

Which was why it came as a huge surprise to her to hear someone react reasonably to Hitsugaya's most recent social fiasco.

As she was driving down the busy street towards the one mall that Karakura had (Her little white-haired friend had promised her the shopping of her life and the mischievous glint that had accompanied that declaration told her enough about just how fully he was going to utilize his father's budget.), she had to try really hard not to stare at her friend as he spoke quietly in his phone, absorbing whatever it was that the other person was telling him and only every once in a while expressing a wan, rankled protest. Slowly but certainly, the strained frown that had furrowed Toushiro's brows smoothened out and he relaxed, curling into a ball against the car door as he continued uttering torn and scarce sentences into the speaker just so he wouldn't let the dialogue turn into a solo-performance.

It was one of the sweetest, yet saddest scenes she had ever seen. And she couldn't even figure out why.

Several minutes later, Hitsugaya hung up and announced that they would be meeting Ichigo in front of the mall. After that he fell silent, rummaging through his father's wallet and phone to kill the time, while Matsumoto just smiled secretly to herself, trying to resist from commenting on the gentle blush that was now visible on the boy's cheeks.

And after that everything was very calm and very peaceful… Or so it could've been, if maybe 5 or 6 blocks away from their destination, Toushiro hadn't suddenly yelled at her to stop the car. At first she didn't react appropriately, just turning her head in bewilderment to give him a startled, quizzical look. But when she saw him bent over, clutching his stomach for dear life and choking on his own words as he groaned painfully that he was going to throw up, she quickly did what she was told, neglecting the symphony of claxons that irrevocably followed her decision. As soon as he felt that they weren't moving anymore, Toushiro kicked the door open and bolted out to the sidewalk, stopping beside the nearest tree and leaning heavily against it as his stomach lurched in attempts to empty its content on the ground.

"Oh, my God…" the boy whispered his eyes wide and unseeing as he breathed shallowly, in and out, in and out. "That bloody bastard…"

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN: Don't forget to review, please! :3**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**A/N: So, this is the final chapter, expect a sequel within the next month. I was prepared to split the chapter in 2 parts, but ended up not doing so, so it's quite long-ish. I'm not particularly happy with how this ending turned out, but I've been battling with it for awhile, and my muse is trying to leave me due to this site giving hell to writers these days, so yeah... be lenient. The sequel will be A LOT more focused on Toushiro and Ichigo's relationship.  
><strong>_

_**Also, due to fanfiction deleting stories with lemons (as most of you already know), from now on to read my smut scenes, you'll have to go to my livejournal account. Every time the story has come to a place where there's meant be a lemon, I'll write 'Missing scene' in that place and you'll find a link to the particular scene in my profile page. Everything will be explained in my author notes, so fear not. I WILL keep writing and there WILL be lemons. The only difference will be that you'll have to go to a different site to read said lemons.**_

Song: "They" by Jem

* * *

><p>Iridescent<p>

Chapter 7

_Who made up all the rules?_

_We follow them like fools,_

_Believe them to be true,_

_Don't care to think them through_

Acting out was what Toushiro did best.

For years, breaking the rules and disregarding authority had been his one true forte, the only thing that had made his grey life a little more colourful, a little less disappointing. He had never regretted anything that he'd ever done, no matter what people had told him or how dearly he had paid for his little romps, because disobeying the norms that someone else had established before him and crossing the limits, which so few dared to question, was his single source of _oxygen_. In the world that he was born in, Toushiro was _dying_. All these people that surrounded him – politicians, who knew no compassion, cheating wives, neglected by their husbands, lying brothers, infected by ambition, they and the rest of the milliards of epitomes of greed, lust, arrogance, _vengeance _– they represented countless of smudged faces, forming crowds and masses that pulsed and swayed in the cradle of their own ill vices and voracity.

Among that, Toushiro was simply a lamb, unfitted for anything other than slaughter, and his only way to survive, was to bite as hard as he could, make them bleed, make them _suffer_. Being one of a kind was a constant battle and an endless trial against the world, for the grand finale seemed foredoomed in its tragedy, painted with the darkest brushes that Fate had in possession and highlighted by its own insignificance. Indeed, Ichigo had entered the scene like a mighty knight in shining armour, but his radiance and glory were a mere flicker of light in a pitch dark night; promise, _promises_, hopes for something that Hitsugaya neither deserved, nor would be able to keep if it so much as grazed his trembling and aching fingers against it…

That's why he shouldn't have been surprised.

He _fucking_ shouldn't have been surprised…

"Toushiro."

The boy's eyes snapped up, narrow against the harsh onslaught of the sun, but not dull, not unseeing despite the turmoil that he was going to, and he easily collected himself, pushing his body away from the door of the limo that he had been leaning against. He had his left arm still wrapped loosely around his middle, the fingers of his right hand holding a smoking cigarette near his mouth, and when the figure of his boyfriend emerged from the black car that had just parked nearby, Hitsugaya did his best to muster a smile. It came out awry and kind of weird, and he got a rather cruel nudge in the ribs from the nearby standing Matsumoto for it, but luckily no verbal comment was made as Ichigo – armed with a concerned, yet impatient expression on his face – made his way towards them.

"Hey." Toushiro managed awkwardly, flinching against his better judgment when the pair of familiar tan hands landed on his hips, pulling him towards the taller, larger frame. The inexplicable need to break free from the embrace overwhelmed him like a fit of claustrophobia and he found himself stiffening when his boyfriend leaned forward to kiss him. "_Wait_!"

Ichigo froze as soon as the word had rolled off the teen's tongue, the look of confusion and hurt painfully obvious as he pulled back to gaze at his white-haired lover with wary, seeking eyes. The scene was more than a little unusual, kind of uneasy actually, and Hitsugaya could see Matsumoto giving him funny, bewildered looks from behind the model's back, like the boy had suddenly misspelt his own name or something equally odd. Resisting the urge to spat an offence in his female friend's direction, the mayor's son turned his attention back to the man in front of him, shaking his head apologetically in a mute attempt to express what he was sure he couldn't put into coherent words.

"What's wrong?" the carrot-top asked quietly, voice heavy with lead-like worry, uncertainty and something else that Toushiro couldn't quite define. Pulling the side of his mouth in a shape that could've been a cautious smile, but was in fact much closer to a grimace than anything else, the boy placed his palm on his boyfriend's chest, pushing gently till the distance between them was big enough not to cause unnecessary attention.

"Nothing. Just not here." Hitsugaya replied reasonably, then took one last deep drag from his cigarette and flicked the burnt fag to the side, using his thumb and index finger. "Let's go."

He felt Ichigo's fingers slip longingly down his arm as he walked past the man and headed for the mall's entrance, but although the forced reticence wasn't something that he was very good at, wasn't a skill that he had ever bothered to develop, he knew he couldn't let himself get too emotional now. And if Ichigo kissed him, the way only Ichigo did – fully, and openly, and honestly – he was afraid all the self-control he had been struggling to retain would crumble like a straw hut. He would break down, _shattered_, because of all the lies, and all the games, and all the_ tricks_ that he had so foolishly fallen for, and he would do that out of helplessness, disbelief even, because there was just _too much_ that even the most powerful imagination couldn't embrace… Too much that the mind of a child couldn't fathom, no matter how hard that child tried to grow up or how desperately he wanted to face the world of the adults, be a _man_ and not a boy…

_Heh_…

Toushiro had never been the epitome of perfection. With his combustible temper, his attitude towards people who tried to force their beliefs down the throats of others and just the general ideas on self-expression and straightforwardness that he had, the boy was a ticking mechanism, placed inside a black box that very few dared to open. He was everything and nothing altogether: a genius, who neglected his gifts and knowledge, an artist, that wouldn't paint on canvas or use brushes, a son, abandoned and resented by his father because of who he was and what he wanted from life. Toushiro had never fitted the mold that society had created for him, for his mind had always tried to escape its own cage and his teeth had always aimed to bite off the bars that held him prisoner. But while he was born to swim against the current and punch with his bare fists the rocks that stood in his way, there was something very specific about the way he acted that almost no one bothered to look into…

He had _never_ meant harm.

The person who suffered the most out of the things he did and because of the pranks that he pulled, was he - not his friends, not his teachers, not even his parents. _He_. _He_ bore the pain of his father's apathy, the bruises that came with the trademark backhanding, _he_ was the one who had to listen to the same tirade about his unworthiness over and over and over again… Toushiro broke and shattered, but mostly he did that to his own heart, to his own feelings, and what he went through, all in hopes that something would change, something would take a different path for the better someday, were mere illusions that once crushed, made him even angrier, even more overwhelmed by despair.

…And so when he found out how naïve he had been and how easily he had played in the hands of the others without ever suspecting a thing, the pain was stronger than what he had ever imagined…

The betrayal was unforgivable.

Reaching the escalators, Toushiro glanced briefly over his shoulder to check if the rest of the flock was following, and, surely enough, Ichigo was no more than a meter away, hands in his pockets and a grey beanie covering up the fatally conspicuous mop of orange hair that most fangirls were probably going to spot from several blocks away with their formidable fangirl telescope and the built-in Kurosaki radar. The model looked non-too-jolly with how things were heading if the wan smile that he directed in his boyfriend's direction was anything to go by, and the fact had the boy turning back around, a bitter taste of guilt dissipating inside his mouth. He had detected Matsumoto's slightly disorientated gadding somewhere near the entrance of the mall, but her irreproachable ability to find him had been demonstrated plenty of times by now, so he wasn't worried that she was going to get lost. In up to ten minutes, she would most certainly sniff her way back to the credit card in his pocket and afterwards – god help his father – the Hitsugaya fortune would never be the same.

Making his way through the relatively empty mall, Toushiro strode forward with a very specific purpose in mind, walking right past the most popular stores and responding very vaguely to his lover's questions as green-and-blue gaze bored straight ahead till he finally reached his destination. The shop was relatively big, a little bit more specious than necessary for the number of clothes that were being offered, but the mere look of the place spoke volumes about the prices and garments that were in stock. There wasn't a soul inside beside the shop assistants and the smartly dressed owner, regardless of the genial smiles that the workers were ready to put forth for anyone who had the courage to peek inside.

Politeness, it seemed, was a somewhat of an unnecessary affix when the first price tag met still virgin eyes and the expenses for even a single article of clothing became clear to the poor potential buyer.

"Um," came Ichigo's slightly hesitant voice from near the boy's shoulder and then a set of warm knuckles brushed against the back of the smaller male's neck. "You sure this is where you want to go?"

"Yup." Hitsugaya spoke up curtly, jerking with a bit too much abruptness from the tender touch, only to turn around and give the frowning model a flimsy smile. "They have the best stuff if you have money. Which I do. For now. And while we're at it," he continued, the wavering upbeat in his voice sounding faker and emptier by the minute. "I have a couple of favours to ask. You see, it's the mayor's birthday today and I'm sure there'll be a huge celebration regarding this wonderful occasion. Do you think your manager would be able to get us invitations?"

"I-… I guess?"

"Good! Now let's get inside and find ourselves something decent to wear for the upcoming evening."

Without waiting for a reply, Toushiro spun around on his heel and made his way through the shop's threshold, the half-bored half-impatient expression on his face causing a few workers perk up at the sight of his dramatic entrance. The shop owner – a neat man in his forties with slick black hair and rather pale complexion - was the first to react, jumping on his feet with his mouth shaped into a small 'o' and brows nearly reaching his hairline. In a heartbeat he was standing before the boy, hands clasped in front of his chest and fingertips tapping against one another restlessly, as he bent down ever so slightly to greet his tiny customer with something akin to a bow. No one else dared to move at first, all of the man's subordinates looking a bit perplexed by the bewildered sounds that were rolled off their boss' lips, but then the noise swiftly changed and turned into actual, coherent words.

"Mr. Hitsugaya! I haven't seen you in so long, I was afraid we will never have the pleasure of offering you our services again. It's been ages, indeed, and with all kinds of rumours going around the place, I had _no idea_ what to think. Your being here must mean things are going back to normal, though, am I right? And that young man behind you? I assume that woul-"

"Shou." Toushiro cut him off sharply, one brow twitching in opposition to the otherwise blank expression that had smoothed his features, and he turned around to gesture to Ichigo to come inside. "Stop talking. It's not a tea party."

"It is a party for us every time we see you." Shou responded with a dutiful smile, to which the teen only let out an audible sigh, giving up a smile only when he detected his boyfriend's quiet chuckle from behind him. "What can we do for you today?"

"Allow me to smoke inside." Toushiro muttered in a leisurely drawl, and to help the man make up his mind on the matter, he pulled out his father's credit card from his pocket, waving it around absently as though he was selling a bus ticket. The little hint had the desired effect. Before him Kimura Shou slowly grinned wider and wider, lips stretching over well-flossed teeth and a warm glow of content dispersing across his face as his small hazel eyes followed the little rectangle lovingly. The scene was almost like a moment taken out of a cartoon show, and the boy needed to bite the insides of his cheeks to keep himself from laughing out loud when the shop owner began speaking again, the words dripping dreamily from his greedy tongue similarly to liquid honey.

"Oh, Mr. Hitsugaya, that goes without saying."

Of course not. The card did all the talking.

"Perfect." Toushiro chirped, shoving the stolen finances back in his pocket. "Let's get some suits then."

The next 40 minutes were spent in constant musing over the clothes, trying things on, smoking, and struggling to decline Ichigo's insistent questions as to where the credit card had come from. Matsumoto joined in somewhere during the middle of the ordeal, quickly busying herself with some evening gowns that the shop assistants directed her to, and her innate loudness and the general fuss that she somehow managed to create around herself, calmed some of the atmosphere down, distracting the carrot-top from the oddness of the situation. In the end, Toushiro picked two sets of suits, both in different shades of grey and accompanied by white dress shirts. He refused the ties but bought one for Ichigo nonetheless, downright shoving the bag in his boyfriend's hands and announcing that there'll be more bribing for his silence later. Rangiku went for just one dress and an old-fashioned, wide-brimmed hat, which of course, all cost a fortune, and Hitugaya more than happily paid for everything, guiding everybody out of the shop with the declaration that they now needed shoes.

Several pairs of shoes (the majority of which being Matsumoto's), an ipod, a mobile phone and a whole bunch of accessories later, Toushiro and Ichigo found themselves in front of a lingerie boutique, waiting patiently for their one female companion to come out. By now, all the purchases had been transferred to Ichigo's guardianship and the poor guy looked positively uncomfortable, loaded as he was with colourful packages of various content and origin. He had called several hours ago to ask Kyouraku to aid him with the favour his boyfriend had requested and Hitsugaya had been pleased to find out that getting invitations for someone of the carrot-top's status had turned out to be quite easy (especially since the mayor didn't handle such formalities personally, but rather left his imbecile secretary do the work). Funny enough, said orange-haired model didn't seem particularly jovial by the news, his face somewhat glum as he seated himself on one of the benches in front of the shop that Matsumoto was assaulting, all the bags arranged awkwardly around his feet like a freaky modern-style paper garden.

For several long minutes neither spoke up - Ichigo's gaze resting on his hands as he propped his elbows on his knees and entwined his fingers together - and the lack of speech hung painfully over their heads like a cloud that would neither burst into raindrops, nor move away from blocking the sunlight. Biting his lower lip, Toushiro shifted his eyes from his lover, to the shop, then back, contemplating what to do now, what step to take to make things better, while still keeping his distance. He knew he was reacting all wrong, cutting out the few people who still mattered, but he couldn't help himself, couldn't fight down this constant need to lock the rest of the world out, when all that world had done was spit in his face at every chance it got.

The question wasn't even about cowardice or bravery, acceptance and denial, falling apart or rising above the problems that brewed in every mundane human life … it was a matter of heart and trust – the most precious things that one human being could give to another – and Hitsugaya just wasn't sure… wasn't sure if he could surrender them so easily. It felt as though-… as though those little treasures that he was still fighting to protect, they would crack and splinter in his cupped hands even as he handed them over, dissolving between his trembling fingers like sand, like dust, like clear spring water… When he looked at himself at such moments, at what he had and what it meant for him, he couldn't shake away the thought that even those cherished sparkles of his, these tiny and imperfect emotions and hopes that he was guarding with everything that he was, they would seem so _petty_ in the eyes of everybody else, so _unworthy_ and _blemished_ by thousands of words, thousands of fingers and thousands of thoughts… Ichigo might not be like the rest of them, but it was a matter of time before he realized a certain little fact. A particular truth that Toushiro had been aware of all along…

_He can do so much better than me…_

Hitsugaya's features softened as he watched his lover, his posture, his downturned lips and the little beanie that was still covering most of his hair, except for a few orange locks that stuck out unruly and daring from beneath the loose fabric… Where was the calm warmth that oozed from every inch of this man's body? Where was the slightly teasing, albeit comforting smile that he always wore to battle with Toushiro's constant frowns? Where had all that gone…?

Maybe it was the sad, almost defeated look on the carrot-top's face, maybe it was just his own inability to stay so distanced from the guy anymore, but slowly, the boy felt his ice wall crumble as he made his way to the bench with unsteady knees and tight spine, and seated himself next to the taller male. Ichigo didn't say anything, remaining still despite the movement beside him, but somehow Hitsugaya knew that the model wasn't mad. Just upset maybe. Confused that instead of being trusted at such moment, he was being pushed away. Locked out like a pup that had done something wrong without even noticing…

"It doesn't look like I'm trying at all, does it?" Toushiro whispered, arranging his hands in his lap as he gathered his knees together, leaving his feet wide apart and with their toes pointing at one another. His gaze slipped to his loose fists, teal irises resting on the thin white flesh that stretched taut over the bones, and he contemplated morosely the way the skin rapidly began losing its colour, fading, chafing off the iridescent fabric of the world until it was only a splotch of something broken, something drained from the vividness of life and turned into a somber dusty grey flaw. "But I promise you… I promise you, I really am, truly, honestly, struggling to make this work. And it's killing me, because-… because the more I talk, the worse it gets, and the more you find out that I'm a lost case and it's not really worth it to rush to my aid with the little that you get in return. This isn't a fairy tale and you don't have to be my prince in shining armor if you don't want to. And sooner or later, after the next mess up, or the one afterwards, or maybe a hundred more later, you'll have had enough… You'll leave and I'll have no one to blame but myself for losing you."

He felt Ichigo turn his head to look at him, but somehow, _somehow_, he couldn't lift his own one eyes to see the expression on the taller male's face, to try and figure out what the man was thinking about this sudden change of mood. He could feel it coming, the tide, the tide that he had feared all along, and his shoulders slowly raised, hard with tension and shaking with hope to keep the world from rolling off his back. The harsh, enormous lump that was gradually accumulating inside the boy's throat was a lot thicker than he had expected, and for a few seconds he couldn't speak, letting his voice fights its way round the chunk of emotion that wouldn't let him talk, weep, _breathe_.

"I f-feel-" His hands clenched now, forming pale, pasty bundles of bones and skin. "I feel so, _so_ stupid. And so ashamed… And _so_ damn sorry. I don't want you to see me like this, but at the same time, I need to have you around. I need to have you here, and I know, I _know_ it's selfish… But it's just-"

"Toushiro…"

"-It's just how it is. How _I_ am. Doubting-… Doubting us is the first step. We haven't even been _h-happy_ yet, and you can already _feel_ it, can't you?"

"Toushiro, please, sto-"

"-How much of a problem I am, how little I can give you for everything you've done for me. It's a matter of time, _goddammit_, only a matter of time before you realize what you have to do." Toushiro swallowed and shook his head, lips pulling into a quivering and bitter smile. "Before you understand that I mean nothing at all and it's best for you to just go."

His eyes stung a little, but he refused to allow himself to cry, holding up the best way that he could in this situation. Ichigo probably didn't understand half of what he was going on about, confused, maybe even repulsed by the short white-haired boy after this impulsive rant… However, it was all that Hitsugaya could offer at the moment, and even a single word more, a single sound added to this mess of syllables, would shatter him to pieces. He wasn't good at this and it was showing, all his frustration, and helplessness, and despair, oozing profusely from his pores like a poisonous mist. This was it. This was the best explanation that he could muster and it didn't. Even. Make _sense_.

_Is this fear never going to go away?_

He could feel his boyfriend move beside him, slowly, almost too slowly even, and then a warm hand slipped down the boy's forearm, caressing the naked skin in its wake till the familiar tan palm was covering Toushiro's knuckles, a slightly rough thumb grazing the thin bones in a soothing and gentle fashion that carefully coaxed the diminutive fist to relax and the tiny fingers to fall loose from their tight bundle. _Oh, God… _The tentative touch made Toushiro choke on some broken sensation, gasping for air that his lungs otherwise had no problem retrieving. What was this? What was _happening_ with him, to drive him so far, to push him so deeply?

"Look at me. It's okay. Just look at me."

Hitsugaya visibly stiffened for a moment, scared of what he might see if he ventured to do as he was asked, but ultimately his mind and body gave in and he cautiously turned his head to the side, peeking up from beneath tightly knitted brows at his lover's smooth face. Ichigo's lips were twisted in a sad, yet kind smile, as soft chocolate orbs met harsh jade in a battle with no losers and no winners, and the man clicked his tongue playfully, ducking down to press their foreheads together in a tiny arch above their joined hands. Toushiro's heart tightened with emotion at the action. Somehow, even without any words to guide them, they ended up closing their eyes simultaneously, breathing together as though it was the only way to keep existing, the one source of life that they could touch… and then the carrot-top's fingers sneaked between Toushiro's cold ones, squeezing slightly, carefully, almost as though to make sure that the kid was still there, with him.

"Feel that?" Ichigo asked quietly, the words fluttering from his lips like tiny butterflies, breakable and free. Hitsugaya wanted to reply, to say something that actually mattered, but his voice shattered before it could burst out of his throat and he just squeezed back the man's hand in response, knowing that his lover would understand. "That's me, right here, with you, and no matter what you say, or what you do today, tomorrow, or a million mistakes from now, I'm not going anywhere. As long as this means something to you, as long as you care and you'll have me the way I am, I'll never let you go, and I'll hold your hand and carry your bags and kiss you senseless… And if it's not enough, I'll try harder, _I swear_, I'll try as hard as I can and more. If you think this is something I'd do for someone who means 'nothing at all', then think again. Think again, and you might just find out where you're mistaken…"

At that moment…

At that moment, as Toushiro pulled back with a shuddering sigh and then tilted his head to the side to attach their mouths together, Toushiro knew he had done it. He had finally truly done it.

He had handed his heart and trust to someone else, and with that single liplock, he officially sealed the deal.

* * *

><p>It came as a habit to ask if he looked good, although he knew that Ichigo would say he was fine even if his little boyfriend was donned in straw shorts and bunny slippers. Which he wasn't, by the way, because no matter how much he resented his father, he wasn't stupid enough to show up at Masashi's party in inappropriate habiliment.<p>

God help the poor foolish souls who ventured to do that.

Clad in his new light grey suit, a white dress shirt and a pair of expensive black loafters, Toushiro felt as though he was reliving an unpleasant experience from the past, like he was maybe about 4 years younger, attending one of those tedious occasions he hated so much, and itching to get out of the clothes that he was otherwise taught to wear with style. He knew tonight was what he needed – his one way to have a closure and be convinced, once and for all, that he was doing the right thing – but either result, either path that he took as he exited this building, would leave him disappointed and heavy-hearted. No matter what he did. No matter what he said, thought, hoped for…

There was no true happy ending for this story, and even he, as the writer of his own destiny, was painfully aware of this fact.

He took a deep breath in, reaching to brush a stray wisp of white hair out of his eyes. Ichigo's presence beside him helped a little, but he would have to sneak out of the guy's supervision at some point, face his own demons - in whatever shape or form they decided to come to him - and right _then_ and _there_, when that momentous event occurred, no one would be able to help him. He would be all alone against the heart-wrenching truth, and he would either crumble to pieces under the pressure, or rise from the ashes like a phoenix that was no longer willing to smolder in the dying embers of the past.

"Ready?" Ichigo whispered near his ear, discreetly running a pair of knuckles down the boy's spine. Toushiro shuddered with half-hidden pleasure under the gentle touch, casting his smirking lover a somewhat reproachful glance for the mild teasing, only to nod his head a second later and proceeded to follow the model up the staircase and away from the safety of the man's car.

Oh, God. This would definitely not end well.

"Are you going to finally tell me what we're doing here?" the carrot-top asked quietly, making sure that no one else could hear them talk (a challenge that surely cost a lot, considering the number of smartly dressed people, who were majestically climbing the steps alongside with the two of them). Toushiro just rolled his eyes at the question and shook his head emphatically, for an umpteenth time that day refusing to respond to the persistent enquiry despite the flicker of dejection that he could clearly see flashing behind the taller one's gaze.

It had only been a couple of hours after the conversation in the mall and it probably felt to Ichigo as though they were back to square one, dancing along some thin, quivering line that would either bring them closer together or push them unfixable far apart. Hitsugaya understood how it seemed to his lover, how hard it was to comprehend what the white-haired boy actually wanted to achieve, but it was the best that the artist could do at the moment - no matter how much it hurt him to battle with the carrot-top, again and again, and _again_, over the same stupid thing – and he couldn't back down now... Fact was though, it was getting progressively more difficult to deflect the subject or make promises for future explanations in order to avoid the inevitable, and as they approached the entrance of the hotel where the party was taking place, Toushiro realized for a final time today, that he wouldn't be able to withhold the interrogation much longer… Ichigo wasn't going to continue taking 'no' for an answer - not now that they were cross the enemy territory unarmed and vulnerable- and the boy would have to give a sensible reason for his behavior, whether he fancied the idea, or not.

And he definitely wasn't thrilled to enlighten anyone about his devious plans.

He saw Ichigo's mouth open, an obstinate expression carving in the perfect, smooth features, but before the model had had the chance to protest and press further, another, unfamiliar voice interfered as he was asked for his name by the strict, notebook armed man who was standing in the doorway to meet the guests.

_Right. _They were in the guest list.

"And your companion?" came the next question, muttered more likely due to habit than anything else.

"Kyouraku Shunsui." The carrot-top enunciated smoothly, holding back a smile with much less effort than what it took out of Hitsugaya not to grimace.

Three minutes later, they found themselves in the middle of a quite opulent cocktail party, surrounded by so many people, that for a moment Toushiro actually felt claustrophobically dizzy. Several faces stood out as painfully familiar visages of men and women that his father had always been tight with (in the most pragmatic sense of the word, of course) but they were all so busy pulling slick, self-important looks and sugary smiles for their interlocutors, that neither noticed the banished son stride rather boldly past them and further down between the rows and rows of guests. By the time Ichigo and he reached one of the corners of the room where several empty tables were situated, the carrot-top appeared truthfully uneasy, pulling at his tie restlessly as he tried to find somebody he knew in the masses of business men, politicians, well-paid companions and other complacent representatives of Karakura's 'highlife'.

"Is that the first time in your glamorous existence that you've found yourself on a party where you're not familiar with the whole wide world?" Toushiro asked mildly, letting a small wicked smile tingle at the ends of his lips as he stood in front of his boyfriend and very gently arranged the man's tie so that it was loose enough without seeming untidy. "Don't worry so much. It's a matter of time before someone recognizes _you_."

"This isn't why I'm concerned." Ichigo admitted quietly, shoulders slumping as he allowed the boy's nimble fingers to deal with his knotted accessory. He peeked down at his boyfriend, chocolate eyes swiping incredulously across the pale face, and then let out a low, half-weary huff. "I have no idea what is going on inside your head and it's driving me nuts. Seriously, Toushiro… I want to know what is going _on_."

"Nothing you should worry about."

"That doesn't matter. You make me get invitations for your father's birthday – the same precious dad of yours that kicked you out and refused to support you when he should've – and now we're here and you expect me to actually _believe_ we're looking for some top-notch entertainment and nothing else?"

"I was hoping you'd get the hint and stop asking after some point." Toushiro muttered with a half-hearted jerk of his shoulder. He didn't even get a snort in response to the stupid argument as Ichigo's hands shot up, cradling the boy's elbows and making the smaller male pause in his ministrations. It was an odd gesture – something that both reminded of the intimacy of a brief kiss and the comfort of a long hug – and it stirred something inside the smaller male, something odd and ineffable that blossomed like a fresh spring flower, yet threatened to wane at the smallest gust of wind.

"You should know me by now." The carrot-top noticed in a soft, quiet voice. "I won't judge. I just need to be sure you know what you're doing."'

_You know what you're doing, right?_

Hitsugaya allowed his hands to lingers a little too long around the other one's tie, gaze lowered as though he had no strength to look up, and after a moment of mulling, he lifted his chin with a forced smile and nodded his head.

"Alright." He agreed dully, letting go of his lover's attire and stepping back to take a better look at the guy. Ichigo didn't stop him, didn't hold on to him, but the longing was there, etched in his eyes, his posture, the shape of his mouth... "I'll tell you everything you need to know if you just promise not to interfere. Do you mind getting me a drink first, though? I don't think I'll manage without any alcohol into my system."

The relieved expression that fell across Ichigo's face literally made something inside the boy clench in pain. He kept his semi-smile up all through the next few lines that they exchanges - what Toushiro wanted, how much ice, how many olives – but it practically made him feel nauseous as he watched the carrot-top get sucked in into the crowd with the one purpose in mind to please his wayward lover in exchange for a truth that he should've been granted unconditionally. The mayor's son closed his eyes wearily for a moment. Every bit of him, every cell, every inch of skin in his entire being was screaming at him to stay right there, not to move, not to dare leave like this. But he knew he had no choice.

So before Ichigo had found his way to the table with the beverages to fulfill the errands, Hitsugaya had slipped in a completely different direction, searching, _seeking_, while he still had the guts to do so.

* * *

><p>It was easier than he thought.<p>

Or rather, easier to be found by the object of searching, because maybe a minute or so later, he felt someone grab him roughly by the arm and in a blur of colours and voices, he was dragged out of the crowd, through some narrow corridor and eventually shoved in a room that had a large 'Staff Only' label on its door. He stumbled a little on his way inside, rudely as he was 'welcomed' into the unfamiliar environment, yet for some reason the odd urge to snicker, to mock this situation, tickled the insides of his throat, making him feel both stronger and slightly nauseous. The rustle of expensive garments reached his ears, soft and well-measured like everything elegant and hypocritical, and then the switch was flicked and bright light showered the room.

"Mind explaining what you're doing here?" came an even voice from behind his back and a pair of feet shuffled along the bare linoleum, chaffing molecules of polish off the glossy surface similarly to dull nails that were trying to scrape across glass. The noise, the result, the flaws that would only be visible years from now - it almost resembled a twisted and far-fetched metaphor of destruction and the boy couldn't help the sick amusement that the thought sprouted inside his brain. Slowly, in a nearly surrealistic manner, he felt something peel off his skin like a thin layer of dry paraffin and every bit of uneasiness, every doubt that he had had, dripped off his being as his lips pulled into a smirk and he indolently straightened his shoulders. Adapting the role of the defiant, tiresome son came almost naturally to him, but he didn't turn around immediately to face his parent, enjoying the tiny stretch of time as he observed the environment with downright professional interest.

His senses tingled with anxiety, noting the lingering odour of paper and stale tedium - the desk, the chairs, the miniature table and the cupboards, all covered with pads, pencils, books and folders that simply screamed 'office' and sucked every bit of life from the air around them. The atmosphere was tangible, ready to crinkle underneath the boy's fingers and he got the unnatural urge to rub his palms together, to scratch off whatever it was from this room that was sticking so persistently to his skin. The faint flow of music which leaked from the cracks around the doorframe was the only source of reality that would touch this room, and it truly had Toushiro pondering over how banal this situation was, how painfully predictable, and he easily accepted his fate as he spun around to proceed with this dull theater performance.

"I've got something of yours." Toushiro said smoothly, brow arching as though to emphasize on the statement as he allowed his lips to twitch just a little at the ends. "Thought I might as well return it and ask what I have to ask."

Hitsugaya Masashi, dressed to the nines in a dark blue suit, was standing between the closed door and his disowned son with his arms folded before his chest and a face that expressed nothing but rigorous annoyance. There was no real anger showing yet, just smudges of irritation here and there, disbelief, some curiosity maybe… But nothing real. Nothing that actually mattered… Toushiro had to admit that for a guy who was already in his forties, his father looked exceptionally good, neat, slender, masculine, lacking even those tiny wrinkles around the edges of his eyes that most people started to develop at this age. No wonder the man still got his way with the ladies – he was the embodiment of power and authority, and all of it packaged in an exceptionally appealing wrapper – but while there were undoubtedly many reasons to feel attracted to the mayor, there was something oddly disturbing about the politician, something unusual that even the most inattentive person couldn't miss...

…And that something, that tiny, seemingly insignificant detail, was the _open_, unhidden coldness that defined the very essence of what this man was and what he could do to raise above the masses.

"Mind if I smoke?" Toushiro asked quietly, already pulling out a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and tucking one between his lips. His father's eyes narrowed at the sight, painfully thin lips parting to say something undoubtedly caustic, only to freeze in that ridiculous shape when the boy produced a credit card from the confines of his garments and twirled the thing between his fingers, tossing and turning it around like a chopstick. "Familiar much?"

Masashi's face immediately relaxed again, the side of his mouth jerking up as a short, muffled huff rustled from the depths of the man's chest. The acrid amusement that his whole being radiated, mixed with some kind of a nocuous mockery with no visible purpose, literally burnt the air between the two of them, eating up the oxygen much faster than any other chemical as the credit card was chucked on the floor, left to slip towards its rightful owner similarly a used plastic gum package.

"Had fun?" the man asked evenly, momentary baring his teeth in some joke of a smile. "I hear you don't have it very easy with what you're working nowadays. And with your relationship recently over-"

"Who said Ichigo and I broke up?" Toushiro asked sharply, cupping his hand around the end of the cigarette as he lit it up and inhaled with a delighted sigh. The slim strips of curly smoke spiraled and curved like an injured white snake, coiling in fading rolls that only seemed to foreshadow their own death. "He's here with me, actually. Got us these invitations. Your secretary is sloppy not only with blow-jobs, I'm afraid, she hears a famous name and adds it up to the guest list without bothering to ask any questions."

The boy's hollow chuckle was the only sound that tore through the relative silence as Toushiro snatched the tobacco stick from his lips and carelessly tipped the ash off on the floor, contemplating his father with heavy, lead-like eyes. Masashi didn't move under the scrutiny, numinous and unreadable in his silence, but it was obvious that his patience was wearing thin, and when he spoke again - in a voice that resembled a hiss much more than a calm parental tone - the irritation was no longer questionable:

"I should've washed your mouth with soap at every chance I got when you were a kid."

"Maybe bleach would've been helpful, too bad it'd be such a bother to lift your finger to even do that much." Toushiro shifted his weight from one leg to the other and quietly began unbuttoning his jacket, slipping the garment off his shoulders and throwing it on the desk beside him with a fluid, careless motion. "But we're not here to talk about that."

"And what, may I ask, has been the reason for this pleasurable meeting, then?" came the taunting question and Toushiro scoffed, shaking his head as he released another cloud of cigarette smoke from his lips.

"We're here because you keep disregarding precautions and failing to delete potentially dangerous information from your technical devises. Hence, I might've stumbled upon something that you surely hadn't meant for me to find out."

For a few seconds the words seemed to have no effect whatsoever, and Toushiro merely smiled at the bubble of nothingness that met his statement, his hand already pulling his father's phone from the pocket of the recently discarded suit jacket. The little machine felt cold and oddly heavy in his hand, the slick surface seeming somehow disgusting to the touch, like the slimy, _clammy_ flesh of a reptile, and he had to consciously restrain himself from flicking the thing to the ground as he dangled it with two fingers in front of the mayor's eyes. Masashi's face visibly darkened at the sight of his lost possession, realization, along with something formidable and vindictive twisting his features and making him look older, more haggard, less human… The man's skin – such a handsome creamy colour – slowly began fading into something whitish and grave, forcing the sharp cheekbones to stand out even more and the thinness of the lips to cut even further into the noble and strong-willed face.

"You didn't notice it was gone?" Toushiro asked, half chuckling as he placed the mobile device on the desk behind him and sucked on his cigarette greedily. "That's sad. You might've been able to think of something to prevent me from doing what I did. But then again – this was your personal phone, wasn't it? And you don't have much of a family life, so…"

"You think you're so smart," the man spoke, voice severing through the room with its peculiar, inhuman calmness. "Push a couple of buttons, find a few old texts, and you're king of the world again. But if you were clever, you would've stayed back, used what you had… What are you doing here _now_? What are you expecting, if you already know everything?"

Toushiro tapped the end of his cigarette again, watching as the burnt substance fell like a gust of dirty snowflakes to the floor, and the smile dripped off his face, leaving only blankness, voids, holes…

"I called a reporter." He muttered more to himself than to his father, watching his poison burn closer and closer to the filter with every wasted second. "Smart woman, Yoruichi-something, if I remember correctly… She was one of the few people in her profession who didn't chase after me with pitchforks and torches back when there were things to chase me for… I spoke to her today, and she seemed more than thrilled to write something a little controversial, with the potential of a very massive scandal if she played her cards right… So she downloaded what she needed for her work from your mobile phone and sent me off with a promise that I'll be reading everything on paper by the end of the week..." he paused, chewing momentary on the inside of his lower lip, and then lifted one shoulder in something of a shrug, continuing in a much lower voice. "Funny though, I thought-… I thought that I would be _happy_ to know that the truth would finally come out, that at least some of the stains would be erased… But for some reason, whether because it all came as too much of a shock for me to accept in one day or because I'm just more of a freak than I expected, as I was leaving her office, I realized that I didn't feel any better… That none of this really satisfied me, no matter what it would do for my future, for my dignity and for my_ pathetic_ self-respect. " he let out some indefinite sound, something between a choked laughter and a huff and added morosely. "Instead, all I wanted, all I _needed_, was to see you, to hear _you_ say it… Admit it, deny it, I don't even care, it just has to be from your mouth."

Masashi's face contorted at that confession-

"And why would I do that?"

-Expressing raw. Unbidden. _Resentment_…

Toushiro slowly looked up at the sound of that question, mouth twisted with bitter, acid distaste as he stared at his father from underneath tightly knitted brows, not even hoping anymore, not even _waiting_ for something to surprise him or to prove him wrong… He knew what he knew, and he only needed his soul and heart to accepted reality. Everything else was clear, believable… And twice as painful.

"Because," the boy breathed, almost swallowing the word before it had left his trembling lips. He reached to the side and crushed his finished cigarette on the desk right beside the abandoned mobile phone, retrieving his arm, only to wrap it on top of the other one around his thin waist. "This is all you've ever needed to claim your victory, isn't it? It's what you've been lacking this whole time, what's made you so heinous, so thirsty for _more _despite the fact that I've already been destroyed, brought to my knees and crushed under the feet of the whole society… It was never enough, what I had to go through, _never _enough… That's why you had to go this far, to get me into the press again… It's because you don't have a closure, just like I don't. You've needed this, to tell me the truth, to _watch_ my face as you punish me with it, and prove to me how much stronger, more powerful, more _clever_ you are…" Toushiro swallowed, pressing his lips together as he gave his father an ironic little smile. "Well, there's your chance. I'm all ears."

When Masashi began speaking, it was like his words weren't even coming from his mouth, but dragging their weight from thousands and thousands of miles deep, from some bottomless chasm, where they had been banished to be forgotten, inhumed forever similarly to decaying corpses of some sick, infected creatures. To an extent they sounded in that way – dead, uneven, lurching up and down as they pushed their way into this world – but it did not make them any less real, and Toushiro listened with fists clenched tightly by his sides, drinking in information that he had already figured out.

"You'd be surprised how much something as simple as family status could mean to people. Having a wife, a home to go back to, a child to take care of – it's all an idealistic idea, ingrained in the consciousness of every person, _with_ or _without_ them knowing it. Being successful in politics is image and appearance to such a great extent, that being anything but exemplary is absolutely out of the question if you want to go far. Your mother was the first step – a beautiful and ambitious woman, who knew how to behave in society without attracting unnecessary attention, and _you_… You were the logical continuation of this plan." Taking a step away from the door, Masashi puled at his own tie, slipping it off and discarding it carelessly somewhere to the side as though this was his own home and he would easily find his things when he got up in the morning. "You were planned, you were conceived, but what I _hadn't _predicted, was that my precious offspring would turn into such a major issue for me just a couple of years after his birth."

"It didn't have to be like this." Toushiro gritted out with more venom than he had planned, but his father just chuckled soundlessly, shaking his head as he got rid of his jacket as well, this time hanging it over the nearest cupboard as he continued.

"You must be really naïve to think that anything I did could've changed the flow of events… From the moment you inhaled your first breath of air, you seemed to swear on your life to go against everything decent and normal that the world tried to teach you. You were loud, and annoying, and demanding, and the more you grew up, the worse it got." Running a careful set of fingers through his well-coifed hair, the mayor tucked his hands into his pockets, canting his chin back as though to take a better look at his son. "Everything had to be the other way round with you, and when you could, you did your best to put yourself on display, to make the world look at you and either cheer, or hoot, but never stay impartial. Fights. Destroying school property. Underage drinking, smoking… And then? Then you turned out to be homosexual." The man huffed, grimacing in disgust as his eyes landed on the boy's slender figure. "Sometimes I think you became gay just to spite me – after all, attention was what you wanted all along, wasn't it? To be noticed, acknowledged_, recognized_ for something, even if it was beyond repulsive, idiotic, or both."

"You're digressing."

"Not at all. What you did, what you _kept_ doing, wore my patience off year after year, little by little, till your escapades became so _big_ and so _obvious_ that I had no choice but to step up. You were a _problem_, Toushiro, and the elections were coming up, and for some reason the more the date approached, the worse your behavior seemed to get." Some sick, twisted kind of delight pulled the man's features as he stepped even closer to the child, watching carefully the smaller, paler face. "You had to go, but I couldn't make you disappear without stepping in the spotlight as the bad father, who wouldn't even _try_ reining his son. So I decided to let you destroy yourself. To make you pick the gun, press it to your own temple, and willingly, _publically_, pull the trigger…"

The next statement came as a whisper, soft, almost tender in its nature, but it cut through the momentary silence like a heated blade that was only meant to cause bleeding. Pain. _Humiliation._

"I hired Sakai to fuck you and make you fall in love with him."

Toushiro could hear the malice, the pure, undeniable _satisfaction_ that came from those words, dripping sweet and warm like candy syrup and burning his already leaking wounds. The ache in his chest, the need to bend in half and disappear, grew so strong all of a sudden, so _powerful_, that for a moment he almost couldn't hear, speak, couldn't even _see _straight… A little too late, he realized that his father was standing right in front, watching him from above, the way a hawk contemplates a mouse, and the boy barely resisted the urge to jump back from the unwanted proximity, to _run_ while he still had the strength to do so.

"Didn't you ever wonder how a school teacher could live in such a large house, have that much money, indulge himself in so many luxuries with the pathetic salary that he got from the institution where he worked? " Masashi chuckled a little, the taunting, the vicious, vile mockery painting stripes and circles with black, oily fingers across the boy's vision. "Of course you didn't… You were like a little puppy, blinded by the attention that you got from the one person who ever bothered to try and 'get to know the real you'. You never researched him, never went as far as to try and find out more about his background, so it never occurred to you that he was, _is_, from my social environment. I knew Sakai as the man who had the ideal family and the ideal private life, both he and his wife owning companies that filled their pockets up on a daily basis… Imagine my surprise when I discovered that while he was flaunting around, being number one husband, he was, in fact, quite obviously interested in cute little things from his own gender…"

"That suited my needs wonderfully… I knew you were _desperate_ for someone to get you, to challenge your mind and rub you the right way, so I found you the perfect man and the perfect sin, all wrapped up in a package that shone and glittered from miles away. He claimed that he agreed for the money, but truth was that with the information I had gathered on him, he was merely afraid of being exposed for his sexual orientation… so I had no problem pulling his strings, guiding him to do what I wanted him to… You played along beautifully, Toushiro, dancing like you've always wanted, spinning around and swaying to the beat, albeit with eyes tightly shut and ears deafened by the volume of the grandiose music. I was there to conduct the orchestra. And you? You wouldn't even climb the scene properly, you were that _easy_."

_**That**__ foolish… _For a moment the boy felt like he might faint, his hands clutching his sides tighter as he averted his gaze, breathing harshly through his nose. He knew this, he had expected it, but it hurt no less, it hit him just as hard and just as deep as it would've if he had come here as clueless as he'd been just 24 hours ago. He wasn't even sure if he knew how to call the emotions that were incinerating his insides at the moment, it was all just a big _mess_ of things, a concoction of experiences that he wasn't used to deal with… His mind was struggling and thrashing against the onslaught of what his heart was putting him through, but it was all so hopeless, so _stupid_ to resist now, for he was already losing the battle and the mortifying sensation of being pulled under, of drowning, bit by bit, by _bit... _it was consuming his whole world.

"That's disgusting." Toushiro uttered weakly, clenching his fists so his fingers wouldn't shake, wouldn't _give away_ the turmoil that was brewing within the confines of his head… The man just lifted his shoulders in an idle shrug, still observing his own child with a malign little smile on his face.

"It was even more disgusting when the idiot tried to pull back from the deal. He said he _loved_ you, you see, that you were _special_. Different. Smart." He spat the words out like they were poison, raising a brow at the look of shock that passed across the younger Hitsugaya's face. "Oh, yes, he wasn't faking… Not most of it, anyways. He really did think he had found his significant other, his little sweetheart, sunshine, or whatever it was that helped him get off when you two went at it…"

This wasn't right. This-… This hadn't been planned, it couldn't be, couldn't be _true_-

_He was supposed to be guilty!_

"H-he loved me?" Toushiro stammered in disbelief, pulling back to look at his father with wide, blank eyes. "He-"

"He was foolish, and he got himself in too deep." Masashi cut the boy off cruelly. "It didn't take long to convince him to stick to the plan, and so we did the arrangements, making it possible for his wife to catch you at the right moment, in the right position. After that your conscience did all the work. I knew you couldn't bear the thought of breaking someone else's family, not when the image of your own corrupted home was always there to haunt you, and you needed practically no pushing to say what you had to say. When the trials were over, I had no reason to be worried about kicking you out, the whole town hated you; you were the local slut, the home-wrecker and the fake prodigy that had been littering the papers for the better part of the past five or six years… I just threw you to the wolves. They did all the real work, and ironically, you _helped_, because you stupidly believed you were doing the right thing..."

The silence fell over them like an alleviating, yet heavy veil and Toushiro could barely breathe as he lifted his gaze to look at his father, to confirm everything that had just reached his ears. He could hear the blood pound in his ears, his heart beating in his chest so hard and so fast, he thought it might burst free… But this time it wasn't disappointment and despair that were blurring his sight, weakening his knees, or messing with his head… There was something else, something stronger and more primal that bubbled from the depths of his very soul, addling with his sanity and numbing his muscles like nothing else could…

-True, honest, desperate _anger_.

"That's it?" he choked out, face crumpling up in a mix of shock and indignation as he met his father's gaze with his own, flaming one. "That's _it_? That's all you're gonna say to me, after all you did, after all the damage you caused, you're not even going to _try_-"

"What are you expecting?" Masashi cut him off with a sneer, obviously unperturbed by the beginning of this insignificant outburst. "I gave you what you wanted, we're clear now, you know the truth from the horse's mouth, doesn't it feel _good_? Doesn't it make you feel better about yourself? Being the good character, instead of the antagonist, for _once_ in your pathetic life?"

"The story will be in the papers tomorrow, or best case scenario – on Friday." Toushiro gritted out between his teeth, trying to keep himself together despite the frustration that was threatening to rip his insides. "Don't you have anything to say? Is that all that is? A story, a plan that worked smoothly and only failed you because you weren't paying attention?"

The mayor actually laughed out at that, and it was an ugly sound, deep and rich, and quite startling, too… Like a thunder that echoed in the shadows, following the slash of its garnish lightening. And the expression on the man's face – so calloused, so uncaring despite the future that undoubtedly awaited him – had all the warmth withdrawing from the boy's body, leaving him cold and empty… And scared somehow, for reasons that he couldn't even pinpoint yet.

'You're confused, aren't you?" The older Hitsugaya whispered almost sympathetically, reaching forward to snatch the kid's arm, yanking the smaller body closer despite the way Toushiro flinched at the action. "You don't get why I'm not angry enough, or upset over this loss, why I'm not _anything_ really… Oh, _dear _child, it's because even if I didn't win at the end, neither did you. Your figures are off the chessboard, just like mine are, and this little game we've been playing all this time, it's brought us _nothing_ at the end… Nothing useful, nothing valuable, just problems." the man chuckled, staring down at the pair of wide jade eyes with his own harsh ones as he continued in a mellow, almost amiable tone. "Don't you get it, boy? Don't you _understand_? You won't hear from me what you _really_, honest to God, want to hear me say, because I'm _not_ sorry. I don't regret anything, not a single thing I've done, and I won't apologize to you for any crime I've committed, I won't give you the pleasure of begging for forgiveness, because I just don't give a damn about _yours_… True, with the proof you've got, I'll have to resign and leave the political career behind me, but I have the connections I need and the influence that I've earned, and you can't take that away from me, no matter how hard you try. You won't sue, and you won't drag this on like anyone else would in your shoes… But the price for this victory, you will pay with your conscience… You will pay it dearly, and you now know that, you will pay it with a piece of your sensitive little heart, the moment you hear about Sakai's family falling apart, his kids being take away from him and his life-"

"Stop. _Stop it_. That's _not_ fair."

"Nothing's fair in love and war, and this is both, I'm afraid, in some twisted version of the saying." Masashi replied smoothly, squeezing Toushiro's arm harder and making the boy wince in pain. "You get what I'm telling you, don't you? You understand what I mean?"

"I can't be responsible-"

"But you will be. And that's the tricky part. You'll never walk away from this a winner, no matter what you do, or how hard you try to convince yourself otherwise... In _fact_, for someone so smart, you sure seem oddly fond of neglecting the simplest things … The smallest, most important details that anyone else would've thought of, because it _concerns_ them, it concerns them more than any elaborate story that's already long gone…" Toushiro didn't even have the time to gasp as his father grasped his jaw, twisting the boy's head forcefully to the side when the teen tried to look away. The man's words were soft, sickeningly tender really, but the younger Hitsugaya knew this look, knew what it meant, and his blood ran cold, paralyzing his whole body like a shot of fatal poison. "You are forgetting, for example-… Something so basic, Toushiro, something _so_ natural and close to the mind… You're forgetting that I _know…_ just how afraid of me you are."

It was a normal thing to do – to try and wrench free, to struggle against it – but then again, Toushiro had never been normal. And he couldn't move, just like every other time before, he couldn't bring himself to resist… So he just stood there, terrified, frozen on spot and expecting the pain that deep inside he thought he actually deserved to suffer. His reason was telling him one thing, but his body had a mind of its own, and just like the time when he had wrongly assumed that Ichigo would hit him, now, too, he knew he wouldn't do anything to stop the blows.

"Remember the beating I gave you before I kicked you out?" his father muttered silkily, as though they were recalling some pleasant family memo that bonded them together. "That was a good one, wasn't it? I bet you won't tell anyone if I do something like that now, too, will you? You'll be too ashamed, the way you always were, the few times that I lost my temper… I should've beaten you more often, though, not just those two or three times when you really asked for it... The bruises definitely suited you. And you always found a way to make up an explanation without it sounding too fake…"

Toushiro tried to open his mouth and respond, to protest, to _yell _maybe, but nothing came out and he just closed his eyes, trying to make his brain work against the instinct that was prompting it to shut down and have him bear the punishment. He knew the moment his father released his chin, it would begin, just like the old days… First with the face. Just a few hits there, nothing too much, nothing that wouldn't heal in a couple of days, and then his stomach would take most of the punches, followed by his ribs, sometimes even his head, if there was something suitable to slam it against. This scenario had merely happened a few times before, and only when he had really pushed it, really, _really_ pushed it, but the farewell present was the worst he had gone through, and it had actually been one of the reasons why he had refused to come out of his room for so long after he was disowned. Momo had stitched him up – the only outside person who had ever seen him in such pathetic condition – but he had made her swear never to mention it again, never to tell, _anyone_, about what she had seen… And she had kept her promise, because no matter how much they bickered or how many times they disagreed on something, she really cared about him, valuing his requests regardless of how stupid or senseless they were…

And that wasn't something you could see every day…

He felt his father's fingers leave his face and his whole body tensed, expecting the inevitable. A part of him had probably seen this coming – the unpleasant outcome that sometimes finished up even the most well-performed scenarios – but the dread came nonetheless. The anxiety that foreshadowed the first hit…

And then…

_Then-…_

…The door slammed open, allowing an explosion of noise to invade the room… The music seemed to come from very far away though, from some dimension beyond reality. From some place that barely brushed its borders against Toushiro's one…

…_-nothing._

"Would you please step back, Mr. Hitsugaya, sir?" came a familiar velvet-like voice and the boy's eyes shot open, blinking with surprise at the sight of his lover, standing right behind his father with a blank expression on his face. "I wouldn't like to make a scene. Really."

Toushiro's gaze slipped down, slightly misty eyes taking into account whatever they could fathom from the situation, and he let out a shuddering breath, shocked by the sight of Ichigo's hand, closed so firmly around the mayor's wrist to stop what would've surely turned out to be a rather vicious hit. The grip around the boy's arm immediately loosened, a small smile appearing on Masashi's face as he extracted himself from his son and straightened his clothes, a slightly amused smirk tingling on the edges of his mouth.

"Touching." The politician stated dryly, snatching his phone from the desk and then approaching the center of the room to pick his credit card up as well. "That one sure is a keeper, Toushiro. Try to not mess things up this time, will you?" then he glanced at the carrot-top and shook his head almost regretfully. "Then again, you can't really help yourself, can you?"

And with one final and oddly polite nod to the two of them, he left the room to go back to his party.

A second later Toushiro found his face pressed against Ichigo's chest.

* * *

><p>"That was another one." Ichigo whined, coming back from the doorway with a sour expression on his face and carrying a small piece of paper that seemed to have some kind of a number scribbled on it. "Do they really think I'm going to change my mind and call them when I clearly want nothing to do with them?"<p>

"Well, you know the media," Toushiro replied around a mouthful of marshmellows as he adjusted himself more comfortably on the sofa, the bowl of pastel-coloured sweets balanced in the curve of his left arm while he dexterously handled the remote with his free hand. "If you're not _with_ them, you're against them. And sometimes it's really nice to have them on your side."

Making no attempt to give his boyfriend room to sit down, Toushiro reached for the yesterday's newspaper and after disregarding his own photo on the front page, swiftly leafed to the TV program to try and find something decent to watch. Vaguely, he heard Ichigo murmuring something about little people taking up so much space, but the comment didn't faze the boy, his attention already completely focused on the possibilities that came with the good cable television and the endless screen that seemed specifically designed to satisfy the needs of every fan.

"There's a 'House MD' marathon already running." The teen mumbled distractedly, only grunting when the carrot-top lifted his bare legs by the knees and sat himself down, swiftly arranging said limbs in his lap after he was seated. "And some action movie that's started about fifteen minutes ago. Oh, and 'Desperate Housewives'…! If you beg real hard, I might cave and agree to 'Desperate Housewives'. But make the begging believable, I won't break unless I see real tears."

Ichigo sighed wearily rolling his eyes as he made a futile attempt to snatch the remote from his lover's hold.

"I don't want to watch 'Desperate Housewives' and you know it."

"That's not believable, I'm afraid, you'll have to try harder." Toushiro pointed out very seriously, which resulted in another short spar for the rights over the remote. When a couple of minutes later, Ichigo was still on the losing side of the duel, he just leaned back against the sofa and closed his eyes. Hitsugaya chuckled at the sight, finding the miserable expression on his boyfriend's face rather endearing, and fetched the newspaper again, scanning through the movie options. "And the Lord of Orange has been defeated. Now let's celebrate this with something annoying that he would surely hate…"

"Toushiro." The model suddenly spoke, and the change in his tone (from playful to earnest) had the younger male pausing and looking up, his brows furrowed with slight confusion. When the carrot-top didn't immediately continue, the boy shifted a little, straightening himself expectantly as he prepared himself for whatever his lover wanted to tell him.

"What's wrong?"

Ichigo's hands were warm and firm as the slipped up the teen's leg, grasping the petite white hand and pulling it towards him as though afraid if he didn't hold onto the boy, Hitsugaya would suddenly jump on his feet and flee through the door. It made Toushiro feel even more bewildered, caught off guard somehow, and he narrowed his eyes, a mix of concern and confusion twisting his features…

"What?" the boy repeated sternly, waiting for the response that seemed to come out with such great difficulty. Ichigo's gaze fell on their joined hands, grip tightening momentary, and then he looked up again, determined this time.

"I-… I have to leave Karakura and return to the capital."

Pause.

_What?_

Toushiro's heart fell in his stomach at the words and he automatically tried to wrench his hand free, betrayal, and disappointment and something else that kept screaming 'I knew it!' making him shake all over as he threw the newspaper to the side, along with the remote. His face felt hard, like it had frozen in some unreadable expression as a backlash against the news, and he found himself unable to speak, the strain that had glued his features in such static way now making everything ache.

"Oh." He managed plainly, throat tight, lungs ready to burst from the pressure. "I see. So. What was this? A summer fling? You came here for a vacation and now you're taking off?" he made an attempt to pull back again, to free himself from the man, but Ichigo wouldn't let him, now holding his hand between both of his as he stared with strained, anxious brown orbs at his lover.

"Would you wait for a second? Please, _dammit_, I knew you'd overreact." Ichigo muttered heatedly, obviously struggling to remain calm despite the struggling teen that he had at hand. "If you would just-"

"Overreact?" Toushiro repeated in disbelief. "_Overreact?_ You did _not_ just tell me I'm overreacting, you-… you-… you can't just _dump _this on me and expect me to smile brightly and say 'okay, nice knowing you'! _Fuck_!" grabbing the nearest pillow, he threw it rather uselessly at the man's face, growing even more irritated when the little stunt helped him none. "Hell, let go of me, will you?"

"No, because you'll run out in the streets in my shirt and your boxers and all those wandering reports will snap a shot of that glamorous beauty."

"Oh, so _now_ you care about me!"

"Overreacting._ Again_. You should seriously stop doing that!"

"Doing what, you dick? Doing _what _exactly, because if you're asking _me_-"

"_Not listening_!" Ichigo downright shouted in frustration, suddenly letting go of his lover to throw his hands in the air in frustration. At the sight of his boyfriend's incredulous face, he paused though, a small laughter managing to escape his face as he took the teen's face in his hands and added softly. "Toushiro… I want you to come with me."

_**The End.**_

_**Sequel: coming soon.**_

* * *

><p><strong><em>AN: If you want to read the sequel, add me to your Author Alert list. The sequel will be called 'Black and White' and should come in the next month or so. The sequel will be focused big time on Ichigo and Toushiro's relationship, and there'll be lots and LOTS of drama. ^^  
><em>**


End file.
